Grade 8: Education is a Civil Right

Eighth graders have a new partner in education, McMeen Elementary on Holly St. In their service learning program coordinated by history teacher Jake Dresden, students visit kindergarten classrooms each month to tutor students. One goal is to examine and observe differences in public versus private school education.

 

“A big theme in eighth grade is civil rights and we talk about how education is a civil right,” explains Jake. “We look at all kinds of topics in education like funding, testing and governance and we compare and contrast the two school models.”

 

Graland students are paired up with a McMeen buddy to help teachers apply lessons in reading and math. “My buddy and I worked on a reading project this week,” shares Jeb Brown. “He is really good at recognizing and understanding words but he sometimes has trouble putting sentences together.”

 

Ryan Gaghen’s buddy is a refugee from Sudan. “He is really compassionate,” Ryan says. “I think he is very advanced for his age compared to other buddies I’ve had this year.”

 

After each visit, students are given time to reflect on their experiences. For example, this week, some eighth graders showed up at McMeen to find their buddies from last month had moved away and there were a few new faces in the classrooms.

 

“Graland students are learning first-hand about the socio-economics of public schools,” says Dan Barklund, science teacher. “We talked about how 80 percent of the students at McMeen are in the free or reduced lunch program and what that means in terms of their household size and income. Some families move frequently because of new jobs and we discussed how changing schools during the year might impact students academically and socially.”

 

Eighth grader Jack Gowen says: “I like seeing how kindergartners interact with each other and how they develop educationally and socially. They have a lot of classroom rules to help teach them how to behave in school.”

 

Ava Barish’s buddy is bilingual and sometimes switches to Spanish to talk with her friends. “I think it’s interesting to know people who have a different background than me,” she says.

 

Prior to this year and going back more than 20 years, Graland eighth graders tutored students at Harrington Elementary, another campus in the Denver Public Schools system.