Student Centered Learning @Henry Ford High School (Threw away everything she knew about teaching and became a Facilitator of Organized Chaos)

WE'RE BETTER TOGETHER: What's Going On At Henry Ford?

Mike Tenbusch Vice President of Education United Way for Southeastern Michigan

Yvonne Lewis (from left), with Cassie Kessler and Maggie Ramos. Learn more about our work first-hand by joining up for an Impact Tour.

You can tell a lot about a school by visiting during lunchtime. Last year, Henry Ford High School was a dangerous place based on its lunch hour alone, where 900 students are separated into three, one-hour periods. That’s 300 kids in one room. Contractual requirements precluded security or teachers from working during the lunch hour. So it was managed voluntarily by administrative staff when possible, which was frequently a genteel, 72-year-old assistant principal who was in way over his head. 

I used to stop by the cafeteria to lend a hand, and also stopped a fight just about every time. It was not a good place to send your kid, or to be a kid.

This year, the school year started with a brand new principal, the unflappable Mark Mayberry, and almost an entirely new staff. The impact of Mr. Mayberry and his new team could be felt instantly. When the school year started, hallways were clear. Tension was palpably less. Lunch was back to being lunch again.

But after a month or two, the old culture crept its way back in. Bad habits are a damnable thing.

It is at this point that no leader alone is enough. This is where Han Solo has to come back into the fight.

At Henry Ford, this is where veteran teacher and Detroit Public Schools grad, Yvonne Lewis, teamed up with first-year teacher Cassie Kessler, and said, “We are going to make student-centered learning work, and nothing is going to stop us.”

That was three months ago. Walk into Ms. Kessler’s classroom now, and all of her students are actively engaged in a variety of learning activities. Students work in groups, on netbooks or alone to achieve milestones to show mastery on a class topic. There are five milestones for each topic, and students are personally responsible for tracking and achieving their success. Every area in the room is used in pursuit of this, including ACT vocabulary words posted on the ceiling.

I was skeptical of whether this was just a show, or the real deal, so I picked out the student who seemed the least interested to walk me through it. Wearing a hoodie and slumped in his chair, Eddie came up to the front to explain where he was on his plan. He showed me the five milestones he had to achieve and his level of progress on each one, including one milestone the class proudly labeled “Mastered, Yo!”  When I pressed him about how he achieves and tracks his progress, and whether all his classmates do the same, he just  kept shaking his head like it was so obvious. What was so hard to understand?

The answer: I have never seen this level of personal and consistent ownership of success in a high school class.

After Ms. Lewis and Ms. Kessler implemented Student Centered Learning, they shared the innovative ways students were learning and teachers across the school came together to make it work.  Henry Ford now boasts seventeen similar classrooms.

This is a much different classroom than the "master teacher" drilling the same facts to all 30 students at a time. And it seems to be working. 

When Ms. Kessler would hear other teachers talk about a student who wasn’t learning, she would say, “Come see him in my class in third hour.  He’s doing the work.”  The success of Mrs. Lewis and Ms. Kessler inspired others to try.

Maggie Ramos is one of the many Henry Ford teachers who have jumped onboard. She is a six-year teacher from a tough high school in Las Vegas who longed to come home to Detroit to teach.  After spending time with Mrs. Lewis and Ms. Kessler, she chose to “throw away everything I ever learned about teaching” and became a “facilitator of organized chaos.”  Walk into her classroom, or many others at Henry Ford now, and you will see students deeply and actively engaged in their own learning — with results to boot..

The performance assessment administered four times each year at the school shows that half of the students at Henry Ford gained a whole grade level in reading in this year alone.

Henry Ford still has a long way to go before all of their graduates are college- and career-ready, and there are real challenges in the neighborhood that kids bring to school every day.  But change can happen when ordinary people like you and me do extraordinary things.  This is what Yvonne Lewis, Cassie Kessler, Maggie Ramos and the resilient teachers and students  at Henry Ford High School are doing every day.

Want to experience our work in area high schools in person? Sign up for an Impact Tour today.

It’s how we get better all the time.

This blog post is a reprint from "We're Better Together," a twice-monthly newsletter, authored by Michael Tenbusch, that discusses the current state of education in metro Detroit and beyond. United Way for Southeastern Michigan distributes "We're Better Together" without charge to people with an interest in education. If you are interested in subscribing to We're Better Together, please visit www.LiveUnitedSEM.org/BetterTogether.