Smarter Summers

It's hard to believe, but the summer countdown is on. Sure, it's only May and the break won't officially begin until June, but as the flowers bloom and the temperature rises, and as finals are scheduled and camp packing lists go out, summer feels like it's around the corner. It brings a sense of relief for all of us - sunny days, weekend adventures, more time to spend with family, and happier, less stressed kids (and hopefully adults too)!

At the same time, as an educator, I also look at the summer break as a valuable time for learning. While kids deserve a break, it is important for them to not totally check out. Most students lose about two months of grade level equivalency in reading and mathematical computation skills over the summer months – what educators and researchers refer to as “summer learning loss” or “summer brain drain.” However, by keeping kids more engaged over the break, we can help to ensure a smoother, more confident transition into the new school year. For elementary students, this means building a stronger foundation for reading, writing, and mathematical growth. For middle schoolers, this means learning how to think bigger by making meaningful connections between academic skills and the greater world we live in. For high schoolers, this means planning ahead for their many very real and very big next steps - honors and AP classes, internships and volunteer opportunities, test prep, and college applications.

May's blog posts are all about how to avoid that summer slump and make the most of the break. We offer suggestions, programs, and support for students of all ages over the vacation. For more information on our group classes or individual tutoring you can visit the Smarter Summers page, or email me at mara@smarten-up.com.

Smarter Summers: Elementary

For so many kids, the end of the school year is synonymous with a total break from learning. Sure, they may (and should!) read books over the summer vacation, but math is out of the picture, writing is forgotten, and spelling is given little to no consideration. However, this lack of engagement can have a serious impact on growing minds. Studies show that students on average lose 2.6 months of math skills and two months of reading gains when they check out over summer break. With this in mind, here are some tips for keeping your little one engaged.

Be a book worm!

- Take lots of trips to local libraries or book stores so your child can continue to consistently explore new books, just like they do in their classroom and school library.

- Read with your children! Chances are they are interested in books that are a bit too complex or challenging for them to read on their own, but with your help, these stories become accessible. Plus, these higher level books will include great vocabulary words for your child to learn.

- Have your child keep a journal of her summer adventures. Not only will serve as a great way to continue writing, it is also a really nice way to encourage creative story telling through a combination of words, pictures, drawings, mementos, and more. Plus, they'll have an incredible book of their own creation to look back on to remember their super fun summer break!

Don't forget about STEM!

- Building math fact fluency is central to later mathematical success, and luckily there are tons of great apps to help kids master their facts. Some of our favorites include Operation Math, Sushi Monster, Number Run, and Marble Math. 

- Legos and puzzles are a great way to develop visual thinking and problem solving skills. Let students work on their own creations, or give them a challenge to solve.

Learn with Smarten Up!

We will also be offering a two-week elementary academic workshop for rising 1st and 2nd graders this summer. We want our students to return to the classroom with confidence, feeling excited to show off all that they’ve learned, and eager to learn even more! Our carefully planned half-day program is designed not only to prevent learning loss, but to actually keep kids moving forward with the important skills that will help them excel in school. We target foundational reading, writing, and math skills using research-based programs within the context of a fun, game-based learning experience.

For more information visit the Smarter Summers section of the website, or email mara@smarten-up.com.

Smarter Summers: Middle School

The academic calendar as we know it is largely a relic of the past, and many educators—as much as we may love the long break—recognize that the extended summer vacation can impede learning. Studies suggest that, on average, students lose about a month of progress over the summer because of their relative academic inactivity. This phenomenon even has a name: the “summer slide.” But if we can capture the potential of these ‘lost’ summer months with just a few targeted projects, we can turn this loss into a gain. Used properly, summer is an opportunity for students to set themselves up for academic success in the fall —and this progress doesn’t have to come at the cost of fun!

During their middle school years, students are on the path toward more ambitious academic projects, taking their first steps toward an individualized, personal education with the new element of choice granted by electives and specialization. This is the moment when students need to start learning to take more responsibility for their own learning. It’s also a time when students are beginning to consider the wider world, and think about how school relates to their experiences and interests. 

One way to begin this transition toward personal responsibility, and encourage students to value their curiosity, is to engage with current events. In the increasingly connected and contentious world we live in, students are constantly exposed to the tailwinds of news, from controversies in pop culture and Hollywood to political upheaval and division around climate change or gun laws. It’s more important than ever that students to feel prepared to sift through the media available to them to form their own opinion, and to evaluate the trustworthiness of different sources. As educators, we decided to meet this need with a pair of week-long writing workshops over the summer, in which students split their time between skill lessons in writing and critical reading, and a project where they can apply these skills by researching a topic of interest  and preparing a news article that summarizes their finding. In Week 2 of the workshop, we move from expository to persuasive writing, learning the elements of an argument, comparing rhetorical devices in major speeches from American history, and then gathering evidence to compose a speech that is delivered in a supportive environment at the end of the session. 

The goal of this program—which we have dubbed ‘Smarter Summers’—is to teach important academic skills while also helping students to test the waters with developing a voice of their own, as their awareness of the world around them grows.

Interested? Email mara@smarten-up.com for more information. 

Smarter Summers: High School

As students embark on the latter half of their high school careers, the prospect of what comes after looms large on the horizon. The college search involves a daunting combination of introspection, research, testing, and logistics that can feel overwhelming even for the most organized student—and it arrives at a time in their academic career when most students are also facing more pressure at school than ever before. That’s why it’s increasingly important to make the best use of summer breaks to get ahead in the college application process. For older students this means focused review for standardized tests, brainstorming for the personal essay, and college visits. Importantly, though, it also means that even students early in their high school years need to take advantage of the summer break to find a passion project, learning experience, service opportunity, or summer job that will spur meaningful growth, offer exposure to a potential area of study or interest, and, as a result, provide them with compelling material to relate during the admissions process. 

These days, more and more students forestall the age-old question: what do you want to be when you grow up? And that’s okay! In a rapidly-changing world where young adults are expected to hold more distinct jobs than any generation before them, flexibility and openness are prerequisites. However, rather than an excuse to avoid reflecting on their future goals, this open-ended world creates an invitation (even an obligation) to explore the possibilities that await. Students will be increasingly responsible for navigating their own way through the thicket of opportunities, rather than stepping onto a career path that is clearly marked out for them from the start. The open days of summer are a first taste of this freedom, which can be equal parts exciting and overwhelming. What students do with the summer months is up to them, but it’s our job to guide them into experiences that will help them to better define their future goals, and to take real steps toward meeting them.

These summer experiences often serve as the source material for a student’s personal essay, which conveys to admissions officers the particular qualities that a student can bring to their school. It also makes sense to use the summer to begin the development of this essay as well, during a relatively slow moment in the year when students have the time to reflect and experiment. That’s why Smarten Up will offer a week-long intensive in the personal essay this summer, developing original and effective essay drafts in a small group setting. Together we will break down successful examples of this type of essay, learning a set of best practices to employ as we also experiment to find the right story for each individual student. The personal essay is a student’s chance to share their unique voice with admissions officers—but ‘be unique’ is, of course, uselessly vague advice. The workshop will focus on the actionable steps in the writing and revision process that will allow this unique voice to emerge. 

Will you join us? Email mara@smarten-up.com for more information. 

Meet a Student: Jamie

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. I really enjoyed reading about the struggle of the various characters during the Dust Bowl and how the characters confronted an environmental challenge.

If you were a teacher, what subject would you teach?

If I were a teacher, I would teach math because I love numbers and the fact that there is a procedure to follow to solve each problem.

What have you learned about yourself as a student since you started with tutoring?

What I have learned about myself as a student since I started with Smarten Up is that I am capable of handling the rigors of a mainstream high school workload. This has especially been true with Ben’s support and encouragement. He has motivated me to believe that I am capable of anything to the point that I decided to take AP Environmental Science. Not only has Ben helped me, but Karla and Brendan have supported me tremendously as well. Karla helped me get through Honors Precalculus and Calculus and boosted my math confidence and abilities to the point that I want to take Calculus I in college in the fall. Finally, Brendan helped me to overcome my testing struggles on the ACT.

Since this month’s focus is on productive summer breaks, can you tell us about one summer you’ve had that was particularly impactful?

One summer I had that was particularly impactful was last summer, after junior year. It was impactful because I took an intensive two week pre-college course at Marist College in Environmental Studies. The semester course happened in just two weeks, therefore, we had high school length of classes and a college load of work. The schedule was so structured to the point that it was difficult to complete all of my work, especially the reading. However, I was able to use my studying skills and willpower to finish everything and get to bed at a reasonable time. I also learned how to live in college dorm for two weeks, which was not too difficult since I lived in a dorm for 4 years in middle school. The best part of the experience was that I found an even deeper passion for environmental science, and loved my professor. He took us on trips including going camping, to a water treatment plant, and on an old boat. This set me up perfectly for AP Environmental Science. 

Outside of school, what do you like to do for fun?

Outside of school, I enjoy exercising like going to the gym or for a run. I also enjoy being immersed in entertainment and culture so I can take advantage of all New York City has to offer. I enjoy going to the movies, museums, concerts, broadway shows, and restaurants. I also enjoy the outdoors like going for walks, playing golf, biking, and hiking.

How do you like to prepare for a test?

I like to prepare for a test by making a Quizlet for key terms, reviewing old assignments, notes, and assessments. I also like to rewrite the definitions or say them aloud in order to commit them to memory. I sometimes make mnemonics to remember terms. For math, I usually just practice problems of a particular concept repeatedly until I understand this process. This can be done for studying for any test in order to commit it to memory.   

What is your favorite word?

My favorite word is mashugana, which is a Yiddish expression meaning something that is crazy or strange.

What is one goal, big or small, that you have for the next year?

One goal I have for next year is to become more of an independent learner, especially since I am starting college in the fall and living away from family.

Meet a Tutor: Olivia

Tell us a bit about yourself! Where are you from originally, and what brought you to New York?

I was born in New York City but I moved to Costa Rica at a very young age and spent my whole life there. My parents run a bed and breakfast and coffee farm in a town called Heredia, near the cloud forest. It was very rural and very fun; I spent most of my childhood with animals: horses, dogs, cats, rabbits and a pet squirrel called Sammy. I came to New York right after college as I was interested in film and theater, and haven’t left since!

What was your favorite subject in school? 

I loved literature, both English and Spanish. I lived in a pretty vivid fantasy world as a kid and reading was always my favorite way to fully inhabit those worlds and make them my own.

Is there a particular lesson or concept that you remember learning very clearly, either because of the way that it was taught, the way you came to understand it, or the way it changed the way you look at the world? Tell us about that experience. 

I had an English teacher in high school who spoke mostly in spoonerisms and never taught what was on the rigid curriculum. At the time, most of my classmates thought that he was a little looney, but the truth is that he was teaching us to think about language in a different way. We were encouraged to read and write in the most creative, expressive way possible and to make up words if they were part of the world we had created. In a system that often teaches language in a very rigid way, having a teacher who talked to us about the meaning of life and used language in a way that demonstrated other means of expression, really opened me up to appreciate literature and philosophy in a way I might not have without him. Mr Goldfinch was indeed loony, but only because he wanted to create a generation of free thinkers and totally unique loony creatives. 

What is your favorite book?

I have so many favorite books but I love anything by the author Wallace Stegner. Other favorites include Justine by Lawrence Durrell, Middlemarch by George Eliot and I have a lot of love for great fantasy novels I read in my youth like, The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman, The Chronicles of Narnia and anything by Ray Bradbury.

What’s one piece of advice you’d like to give to every student reading this?

Express yourself however you can! Whether it is through writing, reading, acting, singing - finding something that is all your own and not dependent on the validation of others is the best way to really figure out who you are and what makes you happy! Spending time coming up with stories, no matter how weird, is also great for your critical thinking!

What’s your favorite word? 

Oh, that’s a hard one! I guess I love the word HALCYON. It sounds mythical, like a half bird-half human… and the word feels warm. I also like LANGUID and SANGUINE; I guess I just miss the slow-moving optimism of the summer (also, I love the sound of those liquid ‘u’s).

Imagine a prominent author has been hired to write your biography: what would the title be? Write us a one-sentence tagline. 

“Living Life Out Loud (and in Technicolor)”

Captivated by the human experience, Olivia has spent her life learning from and exploring a wide array of cultures, mediums and and flavors in an attempt to Live Out Loud!

How do you spend your free time?

I love to act, both in theater and film and I love to write. When I’m not tutoring I am watching movies, dancing, reading, eating and going on auditions for various projects!

What does learning mean in your life?

For me, life is learning - I approach everything I do as learning and in this way am always excited about new experiences, new people and new hobbies. The thought of having a conversation with someone from a totally different background and upbringing is incredibly exciting to me- I want to be pushed to think about things in new ways and to learn about humans across all walks of life. 

Creativity and Learning

My first teaching position was at the Parkside School, which is a school for children with speech and language based disabilities. For so many of my students, it was plain to see that standard academic assessments would not be a fitting measure of their brilliance or potential. They were masters of topics that captured their curiosity, while it was a real challenge to engage them with material that didn’t speak to their strengths or interests. 

At the same time, as a New Yorker with a lot of creative friends, I was surrounded by adults who had struggled their way through school. Some had learning disabilities that made the task of being a “good student” incredibly difficulty no matter how hard they worked, while others struggled with ADHD and were labeled “trouble makers.” Plus, there were those who simply weren’t interested in or motivated by standard academic curriculum. School was a largely miserable and disheartening experience for all of them. 

I founded Smarten Up with these two groups of learners in mind. Our guiding principle is that learning should be fun. While school is not always easy, and understanding new material is often difficult, at Smarten Up we believe that every child is capable of learning. All it takes is creative instruction. That is why we strive to connect each student’s interests to classroom material. 

April’s blog posts are a celebration of creativity and the many ways in which the arts can enrich learning. Our increasingly structured, competitive, and engaged world leaves less and less time for the sort of sensitivity, flexibility, and self-exploration that comes with creative expression. Hopefully these posts will remind all of us to make a little more time for the arts in the lives of our children (and ourselves)!

Creative Writing for the Teenage Soul

A central part of the human experience is finding effective ways to express ourselves and be understood by others. As children we can work through complex feelings, emotions, and ideas, with our parents, teachers, or a trusted caregiver. As adults we have partners, siblings, and life long friends to hash out our thoughts with. Unfortunately, though, it’s during the tumultuous teenage years when it is often feels most difficult to find a good listener. For many students, creative writing can be a great outlet that leads not only to emotional catharsis, but also to improved writing skills!

Whether writing poems, stories, plays or lyrics, the process of putting thoughts down on paper is a great way to reflect and process without fear of judgement. Troubling thoughts that might otherwise fester and breed negativity, anger, and self-consciousness can be exorcised from the brain as teens acknowledge them and attempt to move on. There is no fear of confrontation and no need to be on the defensive or offensive; instead, creative writing offers students the opportunity to reflect and hopefully learn from experience.

Apart from being a therapeutic form of self-expression, creative writing is also good for communication and problem-solving. A writer must describe an experience or scenario in a way that will make the reader fully believe and even feel the things the writer is feeling. This requires an amazing vocabulary, heightened awareness, and empathy. When students translate abstract observations and feelings into well-formed sentences and paragraphs, they are engaging in the human experience: learning, listening, and decoding. After all, storytelling is the oldest form of human communication and exists in every culture and society; when a student is able to engage another person in their story, not only does it feel good, that child is also learning how to create a meaningful social bond.

Creative writing is beneficial to students on so many levels. It encourages emotional development and self-confidence, and improves teenagers’ ability to empathize and connect with others. At the same time, creative writing also leads to academic gains as students learn how to analyze the world around them and communicate their ideas about it with more clarity and sensitivity. We are all driven to reflect on and understand our environment, and to try and make things better both for ourselves and those around us. By encouraging independence, empathy, catharsis and expression, creative writing is one of the best ways to ensure a child becomes a conscientious and well-rounded adult!

The Play’s the Thing

Even before they begin school, kids rehearse behavior and learn about their place in the world by playing pretend. Later in their development, there is much that kids can continue to learn from a more institutionalized form of pretend: the theater. 

Whether in school or out, the particular embodied storytelling of drama is a ready-made training ground for empathy and imagination. Learning to identify with characters who are different from themselves can help students practice empathy for others, and make them more capable readers and writers as a result. A student’s ability to draw connections between their own experience and the experience of a character in a play, a figure in history, or even an animal on the food chain is strengthened by the creative empathy practice of the theater — and these connections make learning far more effective. Studies have shown that the more students can activate their imagination to identify with the narrative nature of what they’re learning in school, the better they’ll retain knowledge and reach a real understanding of the material. The brain likes to think in terms of stories — and a little imagination can help transform almost any kind of content into a story with its own, memorable characters. 

Many students have trouble adapting to the discussion format of a busy classroom, adjusting to the school social environment, or dealing with the nerves of public speaking. Drama games can help build confidence that students will flex in their presentations and everyday conversations. Although they can feel silly, these games push students out of their comfort zone in a safe environment. Watching their peers take risks in getting up onstage encourages students to express themselves confidently and creatively. And when the school play rolls around, students have the chance to take some share of ownership in a deeply collaborative project, developing a sense of community that becomes a home for many. 

There’s an educational case to be made for going out to the theater as well! In a world saturated with film and television, attending a live performance requires a different, more active kind of listening. This engagement trains a careful attention that is increasingly rare in the age of screens. If your student is struggling to digest a classic Shakespeare play in school, taking in a live version can be a game changer, bringing the playwright’s words from page to stage in a way that unlocks the story. 

More than anything, theater is a fun, liberating opportunity for students to tell stories and develop their confidence and emotional intelligence. It’s an ancient tradition whose importance for expressing the spirit of the times and exploring human connection isn’t going away, even in the age of technology, and it deserves a place in our education system.

Meet a Student: Maia, 7th grade

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book is Misty Copeland’s autobiography, "Life in Motion." 

If you were a teacher, what subject would you teach?

I would teach math because I've come to appreciate the fact that there is only one right answer, but you can solve for it in ten different ways. I used to hate math, but I feel a lot better about it now thanks to great teachers and tutors. 

What have you learned about yourself as a student since you started with tutoring?

I have learned that I always need to check my writing for my most common mistakes - punctuation errors, missing words, and clear sentences. I have learned that I need to take my time when I am taking tests. I have also learned that I need to write out my study guides for tests by hand and make sure not to leave my work for the last minute!

Outside of school, what do you like to do for fun?

Outside of school I love to listen to music, dance and play guitar. 

How do you like to prepare for a test?

I like to prepare for test by looking back at my previous homework from that unit, and then I put all the answers into a study guide I make by hand. Then I like to have lots of time to review just in case I have additional questions.

What is your favorite word?

I don’t think I have a favorite word, but I have a most used word which is "seriously."

What is one goal, big or small, that you have for the next year?

My goal is to put 110% into everything I do!

Maia is also an incredible poet. Here is a piece of her work!

Butterflies, Bees and Flies...

Two distinguished groups, separating the once unified class, which makes each group its own whole. Sour bees and the salty flies create rifts in the seventh grade class. Cuddles or huddles. Awkward hi’s and shy goodbyes. The tension between the class is spreading like the flu, quietly and creepily.

There are the bees who feel the continuous pride when they are crowned champions. They speak their own language, when I try to chime in on the conversation, my efforts are met with silence. I only see a girl shaking her golden gumdrop ponytail side to side, signaling me to leave.  

The flies are always looking for trouble - getting in people’s business and gossiping to no end. This leads to slim french fry fights and never ending rumors of horribly humiliating fake stories. The more lies the flies tell, the more trouble they stir up in their goblet of alphabet soup. 

Butterflies fly wherever they wish and never have to change to fit in. That is me. The butterfly floating between groups, trying to find my place to settle. Butterflies like the peaceful quiet of a light marshmallow fluff breeze on a sunny day, and yet, it is stormy all around me.