Lesson Plans:
A Teacher Speaks

This article is part of our special reporting on the Harlem Children’s Zone, the antipoverty initiative examined in depth in the current issue of City Limits magazine, Hope or Hype in Harlem?

Patrice Ward teaches ninth-grade English language arts, African-American film, and college prep in HCZ's Promise Academy I High School. This is her second year with the school; in 2008-09, she taught eighth-grade English and moved up to high school along with her students. Ward is 32 years old and graduated from Hillcrest High School in Queens and City College, where she began as a pre-med student, then became an English major.

After graduation, Ward worked for the Albert Ellis Institute as an office manager and newsletter editor. She also worked for three years with Kaplan, Inc., preparing students for the SAT, PSAT and specialized high-school admissions test. She says that once she realized, "I'm pretty good at this teaching thing," she became a New York City Teaching Fellow, part of the Department of Education's alternative teacher-certification program for college graduates. Before coming to the Promise Academy, Ward taught for five years in a middle school in Queens. She spoke with City Limits about what life is really like inside one of the country’s most famous schools. Here are highlights from that interview.

How did you come to teach at the Harlem Children's Zone?

I was interested in trying a different avenue of teaching. I had some administrative issues in my previous building where I just felt like I needed to try a different avenue. They hired a lot of administrators through programs, people who haven't actually taught, or who haven't taught in years, or people who come in with this corporate head-hunter mentality. It was itching me the wrong way. So I thought, let me try something a little different. I came in, I interviewed, and that's how I got here.

This building offers you a lot of support. If you're having a problem, there's another colleague that wants to help, there's an administrator that will offer their assistance, there's something going on. I got way more [professional development] here in the last year that I've been here than I got in the five years in a DOE school.

What's the mix of new and experienced teachers at the Promise Academy?

There are a lot of teachers here, where this is their only teaching experience. At least 50 percent of the staff fall into that realm, where this may have been their first job. The school is now building. Last year, there was only the ninth grade. (During this school year, the high school comprises grades 9 and 10; it will grow one grade per year as students age up.) They basically had to hire a set of staff to be with [the new grade], so we have maybe six-plus people, teachers and teachers assistants, that weren't here last year, although they may not be new to teaching.

How is the curriculum developed at the Promise Academy high school?

It's a little bit of everything. That's the blessing of a charter school. I can take DOE curriculum, a developer can come in, I can bring my own ideas … It's a blend, a flux.
Here, we're focused on finding out what kind of skills the students have and don't have. We do a lot of grammar; that is enforced into our curriculum now. In charter schools, we can do what we want. In the DOE schools, grammar's been pulled out of the building. Right now, I'm working on subject-verb agreement, how to write coherent, complex sentences.