High schooler Isabelle Capuras (left) works with second graders Annalise and Isaiah.
Students Frishta Rasuli, Chaunte Eddy, and Isabelle Capuras with Hillhouse educator Glenda Reyes.
Hillhouse High School sophomores Frishta Rasuli, Chaunte Eddy, and Isabelle Capuras became teachers to King/Robinson School second graders for the day — as they brought to fruition the classroom they wish they’d had years ago as much younger students.
This school year, seven Hillhouse students — including Capuras, Rasuli, and Eddy — have been enrolled in Southern Connecticut State University’s (SCSU) EDU 200 teaching course, which is being taught by Hillhouse veteran Glenda Reyes for the first time this school year.
Reyes, who has taught history for 13 years at Hillhouse, didn’t assign her students an essay or final exam to wrap up their year of learning about what it takes to be an educator. She instead tasked her students with preparing an elementary lesson plan and executing it in a King/Robinson classroom last week for the dual-enrollment course.
Eddy, Capuras, and Rasuli kicked off their lesson in King/Robinson educator Sydney Cervero‘s second grade classroom at around 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, aiming to teach the students to identify a story’s main idea and supporting details.
The group did so by reading “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” together and then discussing what lessons they took from the children’s classic.
When Goldilocks ate the three bears’ porridge, sat in their chairs, and slept in their beds, King/Robinson second graders came to the conclusion, with the help of the Hillhouse student-teacher trio, that you should always lock your doors, never break into someone’s home, and always have integrity.
Wednesday’s lesson was selected by the Hillhouse sophomores because Capuras said reading a book is better than watching a video together. “All they do is sit on screens nowadays, so we don’t want them to learn like that,” she said.
Eddy agreed, noting that she often learns more when reading then watching videos.
While the trio said they aren’t interested in becoming educators, they have learned several useful skills from Reyes’ course, like patience and effective communication.
“The most important thing you can take from this class is being empathetic, because you need to understand your students,” Rasuli said.
Throughout the school year, the Hillhouse students observed classrooms at King/Robinson, Hillhouse, and SCSU.
The trio reflected on their own learning growing up. Rasuli has lived in New Haven for five years and attended Troup Middle School; Eddy moved to New Haven her freshman year; Capuras has lived in New Haven all her life.
“For me growing up, I hated a boring class,” Capuras said.
And so the group began their Wednesday lesson with a social-emotional check-in, asking the students which emoji on the smart board they were feeling like at the moment.
“When a teacher knows how you feel from the start, it helps. You can then figure out the day together,” Eddy said.
The trio agreed that they want the students to feel seen by them as student-teachers beyond just their academic abilities.
In the classroom Wednesday, Capuras, Rasuli, and Eddy introduced themselves to the students and then had them introduce themselves.
As the student-teachers took turns reading the book from the smart board, they tasked the second graders with reading aloud the quotes.
“Yow!” second grader Celestine said while taking a turn reading. “This porridge is too hot!”
“Bleck! This porridge is too cold,” said second grader Isaiah.
Soon the reading lesson turned into a group read-aloud. Eddy paused throughout to ask the students questions like, “Why do you guys think the bears are confused?” and “Why do you guys think Goldilocks ran away?”
After reading, students were given a worksheet to identify one main idea from the story and three supporting details. As students completed the worksheet, Eddy, Capuras, and Rasuli visited each table to offer small group support.
Meanwhile, Reyes and Cervero watched from the corner of the classroom, occasionally helping queue the students and finding similarities between high school and middle school teaching — like how no matter the age, students always lose their pencils.
While at tables, the high schoolers helped redirect students back to the task and spell out words like “porridge.”
At one table, Capuras was told by a second grader, “I don’t like writing because we always have to do it.”
Capuras responded, “It’s an important skill you’ll always have to do in life.”
When asked their favorite character for the lesson’s exit ticket, second grader Tenzin said Goldilocks was her favorite because she’s funny and “pretty like me.”
After leaving Wednesday’s class, Reyes talked with her students about how they think the lesson would have gone if they were the only teacher in the room with 15 second graders.
The trio agreed that working with that many kids alone would have been much harder.
When discussing their takeaways from the experience, Capuras said it was a surprising challenge for her to see that “when a kid gets confused, they get stuck and just don’t respond.”
The group said they worked through that challenge by spending time talking with the student in order to build up their confidence and ease them into being willing to work with them.
Eddy said she noticed that while the students were capable of the work, they easily got distracted. Rasuli said while she tried to get the students to help each other, they often would just want her help and so she was challenged with “offering too much help.”
Wednesday’s lesson taught the high schoolers the importance of effective small group pairings, the struggle of getting students to redirect their energy, and motivating the second graders to write.
Reyes said she was so proud of all of her students this week for succeeding at their lesson planning and execution. “You guys got to see what that skill of ‘thinking on your feet’ is really like,” Reyes said. “When you have 20 eyes on you and your projector isn’t working, you have to adjust. Even if don’t go into teaching, these are skills that will be valuable.”
Chaunte Eddy high-fives a student.
Hillhouse’s Chaunte Eddy at work as a teacher for an hour.
King/Robinson second graders help read aloud Goldilocks’ story.