From a Tarrant County Juvenile Probation Officer to the Assistant Principal of Cassata, Bruce Smith has been making a positive impact on kids his whole career. Throughout twenty-five years of being a probation officer, Mr. Smith had worked with Cassata countless times. Through his encounters with this amazing school he saw something different than he had with other second chance schools. He saw a school that worked together, as a staff and a community, to help change kids’ lives. So when the opportunity opened up to join the Cassata staff, Mr. Smith embraced it. He uses his experiences from the probation office to help kids settle differences without any violence and works as a mediator between them. Doing what he can to help the students in any way, Mr. Smith has been successful in creating an environment that kids can grow and see their success. He said, “Success comes every day,” and you can see it in how successful the kids are in this environment. He lives by this principle everyday at Cassata. He works hard to keep all the kids going to class and tries to help graduate every student that comes in through the doors. Mr. Smith also has the privilege of being the connecting link between the students and the parents, which includes his favorite part of his job, letting parents know when their child has passed a standardized test or gotten a credit for a class. To him, nothing is better than pushing a kid’s future toward a positive direction. His goal is to give the kids a second chance, to help them stay in school, and to help them get into college. He constantly uses his knowledge and experience he has gained through his many years of service to the community to benefit the lives of these students, who come from a variety of situations, and help thrust them towards a successful future. With his background in aiding underprivileged kids, Bruce Smith has used his developed skills to help kids at Cassata become the masters of their future.
Reflection
Cassata is an alternative high school for students who did not respond to the traditional high school environment but have excelled in the unconventional curriculum offered. Cassata high school opened its door in 1975 through the vision of sister Bonaventure Magnan. She envisioned a school where students could obtain a education despite barriers faced in their lives. Her vision has truly become reality where thousands of kids with incredible obstacles have taken advantage of the second chance given to them, successfully completing their secondary education. Cassata has effectively earned the reputation of a non-traditional academic environment in which the student is respected and expectations are high. Cassata has become a staple in the Fort Worth community attracting kids from dozens of zip codes and has shown tremendous success rates among teens trying to graduate high school. In fact, Cassata has reported a 90 percent graduation rate while the rest of Fort Worth has only 79 percent graduation rate (Dallasnews.com) Cassata offers a work a your own pace curriculum for only three hours a day either in the morning or afternoon. This benefits kids who have a job , need to take care of their family, or are traveling from far distances. Even though Cassata requires each student to pay tuition but this tuition is determined by the families income of the child and 90 percent of the children at Cassata receive some sort of financial assistance. In Texas alone over one million kids in Texas have no supervised place to go after the bell rings. Cassata offers many after school programs which is important because 26% of kids in the United States are left home alone after school and 1 in five violent crimes happened between four to seven o’clock in the afternoon according to Skip Hollandsworth article ,”Leave it to Be”.
The dallas Fort Worth area has the 7th highest dropout rate among cities in the United States (studentmotivation.org). Cassata is doing everything they can to cater to increasing number of high school dropouts in the DFW area but funding has limited the amount of teachers and students the school can take. We were very shocked to see that this many children in the DFW area are dropping out of high school.Being raised that a college degree can open many doors upon joining the workforce, it is hard to imagine that anyone would want to dropout of high school. After our experience at Cassata we realized that these students have inconceivable amount of barriers that the normal high school student couldn't even fathom. If only there were more schools like Cassata because this type of schooling would benefit millions of kids across America. The problem exists because most kids that dropout of high school cannot suffice to the duration of the school day and the strenuous curriculum that most schools offer. Cassata’s shorter school day and work at your pace curriculum encourages kids to stay in school and actually enjoy it.
Before going to Cassata I had some pre-established notions as to what the school might be like. Knowing that this was a institution of learning for more underprivileged kids, I figured here might be some rougher characters here. I couldn’t have been more wrong. From this experience I discovered the difference on how to write for a community and write about community, more about the education system in America, the differences between my school and Cassata, and finally some changed previous assumptions.
When writing for the profile and reflection, I learned the difference between writing for a community and writing about a community. When writing for a community I had to use more “inside research,” meaning research gathered from visiting the actual community. When writing for a community I felt like Googling statistics weren’t enough, I had to get in touch with the community to truly express their values. I also had to be more sensitive to how I portrayed the particular group. As I wrote for the teacher profile I had to be careful with my words as to avoid any negative connotations. For example, like in the paragraph above, where I referred to the students of Cassata potentially being “rougher characters,” I would never write that for the portfolio.
However, when writing about a community, I had to be unbiased. I had to say things as is. Bringing in “outside research” and such is essential to providing the most accurate and broader view. Writing about a community allowed me to say what I wanted to say as opposed to what I felt the community would want me to say. It gave me more freedom.
From this research I gained a new perspective on the education system in America. While walking through the halls of Cassata, I was exposed to a new style of schooling. A type where the teachers were more focused on the students rather than tenure. A place where academics were the primary concern. After researching the national statistics of our education system I was surprised at how poor our schooling method actually is. According to an article by the International Business Times, when compared to other countries, the United States spends the most on education however we still come out as 17th overall. Clearly we aren’t being as efficient and effect as we could.
Regarding my own personal high school experience compared to Cassata, I saw many differences. At my school, the classes were mostly lectures as opposed to how Cassata’s students work independently in class at their own pace to learn the material. As i walked through the Cassata halls, I was impressed with the what the assistant principal told me about the success they had from this more individually-centered approach. Another big difference I noticed was concerning the social interactions of students. It seemed like at my high school there was always some verbal or physical fight going on. From what I saw at Cassata, the students got along fine and even supported each other. At my school, the majority of the teachers weren’t very ecstatic about their jobs. At Cassata the teachers seemed to genuinely want their kids to succeed and to go on to bigger and better things. Now to say what sort of curriculum and teaching methods are better, who knows? But what I saw at Cassata was very unique and seemingly effective.
Admittedly, before going to Cassata, I had some previous assumptions. Assumptions concerning the quality of the physical establishment, academics, and such. When arriving though I thought the castle-like structure was very cool. Ironically, a castle-like metaphor would be completely inappropriate here to address the actual inner, social workings of the school. There was no class system or hierarchies, just equals pursuing their education with the assistance of passionate educators. Through the writing process is where I really noticed my preconceived notions become reconfigured. When recalling my experience to paper, it was easier to reflect on what I had discovered.
In conclusion, through this project I was able to tackle two rhetorically different approaches, a profile and a reflection. Within the profile I had to write for a community and within the reflection, about a community. The reflection also spurred research and assessment on contemporary American education and my own. Cassata is something special, a diamond in the rough. From it, I took away new opinions, incites, and writing techniques.
Author’s Note: To divvy up the work, initially we each took a section. One of us had the portfolio. The other two had a half of the reflection. After the first draft, we each switched to a different part of the paper to assess and improve the other’s portion. By the time the paper was complete, we each had influence on each part of the essay. One part we could’ve improved on were the transitions. One part I thought we did well were the incites and getting our points across. What we took away from workshop 3 was improvement on citing sources and restructuring of our reflection, meaning moving some paragraphs around.