“On a daily basis, it’s about little adjustments,” explains Jen Tillotson, 10th grade geometry teacher. “If my students didn’t get it, what’s the one thing I’m going to focus on tomorrow?”
“The most important thing is relationships. That allows rigor, and relevance follows,” said Assistant Principal Vince Iwasaki.
“The [Hurley staff] never rests,” said Rebecca Carey, mother of Hurley third and sixth graders.
A diagram of the brain hangs at the front of every UP Academy Dorchester third grade classroom, covered with stickers. The stickers represent neurons. When a student struggles with a problem and then gets it, or if she makes a mistake and then corrects herself, her brain grows, and she gets to go up to the board and add a neuron.
Claire Mahler thought she’d blown it. One student had squirmed in her seat. Others hadn’t grasped some of the more challenging concepts. Asked how she thought the sample lesson had gone, Mahler was honest: Parts had worked; others had not.