Friday, July 01, 2005

Hilbert's Educational Philosophy

Meet every student where they are in their academic, emotional, and social development. Students enter my classroom at every possible stage of development. My challenge is to meet each and every one of them at their level, scaffold the instruction accordingly, and assure that every student has an equal opportunity to meet the grade-level standard by the end of the year.

Facilitate student access to every possible resource. There are abundant resources in the classroom, school, district, and the community to help students succeed in school. If there is a resource available to enhance the learning experience, I am duty-bound to share it with my students.

Share the joy of learning. Learning is fun. Students should want to enter my classroom and not want to leave. The learning experience in my classroom should be engaging, varied, and challenging.

Learn from my students. Students have a lot to offer in the teaching process. I listen and learn about their needs as students and people, about the value of a lesson, about improving my instruction methods, and about an innocent and precious view of the world.

Believe in the "second chance," which in application is actually 490 chances (70 x 7). Why should students ever be subjected to failure? In my class students always have the opportunity meet the standard—"if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again." If students aren’t satisfied with a score on assignment, test, or paper in my class they have the opportunity to do it again, and again.

Enrollment Letter

Dear 7th Graders:

Would you like to write movie, game, or CD reviews for the new Carnegie newspaper? How about covering sports and news and seeing your articles published on the internet? Does meeting famous authors, publishing your stories and poems, writing movie and television scripts interest you? If you answered yes to any of these questions, consider enrolling in Carnegie’s brand new Writers’ Magnet.

The Carnegie Writers’ Magnet is a college preparatory, standards-based small learning community that will be housed at Carnegie next year. If you’re accepted into this prestigious program you’ll share the same cadre of teachers as your classmates, which not only facilitates a closer working relationship with your peers and teachers, but also facilitates team teaching and makes planning special assemblies and field trips much easier.

You will also be eligible to become a staff writer or even an editor for the new school newspaper. Students will publish the newspaper in an elective class that will be open only to students in the Writers’ Magnet.

At the end of your eighth-grade year you will have a sizable body of published work, and you also will have learned key strategies to succeed on the SAT, the California High School Exit Examination, and AP tests.

If you are interested in enrolling in the Writers’ Magnet return this letter filled out and signed by a parent or guardian by Friday, May 27, to your homeroom teacher. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Andy Hilbert
English Teacher, Writers’ Magnet