Pat Finn
Although I will not be working at J.R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School this fall, I greatly appreciated the experience of doing this ethnography, and learning about the school and surrounding community. Spring Garden is a neighborhood with a fascinating history, and is truly a microcosm for Philadelphia as a whole. For every gain the neighborhood has made from gentrification – and for Spring Garden, a former center for organized crime, these gains should not be underestimated – something is lost due to rising housing prices. Meeting Justino was truly one of the most rewarding experiences I've had since moving to Philadelphia. It's people like him, community leaders, who really hold our society together. Without the civic association he runs, there would be no community garden, and public housing residents here would have no advocates outside of themselves. More generally, the degree to which Spring Garden remains a “community” with a community feel is certainly due, at least in part, to the civic association's efforts to prevent the entire neighborhood from being re-shaped by developers and businesses. While businesses are crucial for a community, public and civic institutions are equally valuable. It was fitting, I think, that when we met Justino he was hard at work in the park, preparing for an event by hosing down the sidewalk. Maintaining a community doesn't just happen; like anything else that is valuable, it takes work.
It was somewhat sad for me, though, to see that Masterman is not really integrated into this wonderful community. The neighborhood's joys, its failures, its tragedies and its triumphs are not really shared, fully, by Masterman. While this school is located within the community, it has long been a “magnet school” drawing students from throughout the city, and only a handful of Spring Garden residents attend this school. However, as to the school itself, it seems like a great institution. I also attended a very academically rigorous high school with traditional pedagogies and academic standards, and definitely feel that this kind of education is ideal for certain kinds of students. While the school is under-resourced in terms of its facilities being overcrowded, each of the teachers and students we spoke to agreed that the school was rich where it really mattered: in dedicated faculty and enthusiastic students.
But what does it mean to be a “magnet” school? I've already noted that this means that Masterman is in its community, but not fully of it. This itself isn't the worst thing ever, and it seems that Spring Garden maintains its sense of community without having a single high school serving all of its residents in this age group. (Most, I think, attend Ben Franklin High School, but this school also serves families from other neighborhoods, including Farimount and parts of Northern Liberties, so it is also not really the "neighborhood school" for Spring Garden.) The more difficult thing to grapple with, for me, is the way high schools in Philadelphia are organized into hierarchies, and how this affects students sense of themselves as students. One lady we interviewed – who had had a son graduate from Masterman several years ago – described Masterman as “the good school” and Ben Franklin as “the bad school.” If this attitude is widespread, it seems it would wreak havoc on students' self esteem. The kids at Ben Franklin, if they are taught to not respect their educational environment, are probably unlikely to engage in their studies as fully as the students at Masterman, who receive the message from the community that they attend a “good” school. Furthermore, it is my understanding that eighth graders at Masterman are required to meet certain academic standards if they are to stay on for high school. I think being thrown out of one's high school – the “good” school in the community, one must remember – could be a disaster for a student's self-esteem. The problem with sorting students into various academic “tracks”, and further separating the students in these tracks into separate institutions, is that, as we have learned, children usually live up to one's expectations of them, whether positive or negative. By placing kids in “lower” schools – and popularly calling these schools “bad” – one basically writes them off without allowing them to realize their potential. This seems to me like a major issue.
Even though I am not going to be teaching at Masterman this year, I very much appreciated getting to know this school and also the surrounding community. The student life at Masterman seemed very similar to what I am familiar with, and I think I would have loved it there. Indeed, it's very exciting to be around young people who are excited about their educations and motivated to succeed and this is the story we heard about Masterman again and again. However, I would caution myself here against ignoring Masterman's problems due to the fact that they seem less severe than those of schools in the surrounding community. While it's true that this school has high achievement numbers, and low incidences of drop outs, it does not meet all of its students needs, as one teacher pointed out. There seems to be a lack of English language instruction for ELL students, who are put at a disadvantage. Also, the school is not immune from the budget cuts that have plagued all Philadelphia schools. There is no money to improve or expand the facilities even though the school is way over capacity. Overcrowded classrooms and hallways can affect education in myriad ways, including by promoting stress among an already anxious, achievement-minded population. If I were to work at Masterman, I would caution myself against maintaining a breezy, simplistic attitude of the place as a “good school” serving “good kids” who are headed for success, in contrast with many other Philadelphia youths. This narrative is too simple, and if taken seriously, would prevent one from recognizing and addressing many of the unique issues that the students here face. Like Justino, one must work tirelessly to be a conscientious steward of one's environment. There is no such thing as a school, or a community, or a student who has reached their potential. Everyone and everything is a work in progress.
Although I will not be working at J.R. Masterman Laboratory and Demonstration School this fall, I greatly appreciated the experience of doing this ethnography, and learning about the school and surrounding community. Spring Garden is a neighborhood with a fascinating history, and is truly a microcosm for Philadelphia as a whole. For every gain the neighborhood has made from gentrification – and for Spring Garden, a former center for organized crime, these gains should not be underestimated – something is lost due to rising housing prices. Meeting Justino was truly one of the most rewarding experiences I've had since moving to Philadelphia. It's people like him, community leaders, who really hold our society together. Without the civic association he runs, there would be no community garden, and public housing residents here would have no advocates outside of themselves. More generally, the degree to which Spring Garden remains a “community” with a community feel is certainly due, at least in part, to the civic association's efforts to prevent the entire neighborhood from being re-shaped by developers and businesses. While businesses are crucial for a community, public and civic institutions are equally valuable. It was fitting, I think, that when we met Justino he was hard at work in the park, preparing for an event by hosing down the sidewalk. Maintaining a community doesn't just happen; like anything else that is valuable, it takes work.
It was somewhat sad for me, though, to see that Masterman is not really integrated into this wonderful community. The neighborhood's joys, its failures, its tragedies and its triumphs are not really shared, fully, by Masterman. While this school is located within the community, it has long been a “magnet school” drawing students from throughout the city, and only a handful of Spring Garden residents attend this school. However, as to the school itself, it seems like a great institution. I also attended a very academically rigorous high school with traditional pedagogies and academic standards, and definitely feel that this kind of education is ideal for certain kinds of students. While the school is under-resourced in terms of its facilities being overcrowded, each of the teachers and students we spoke to agreed that the school was rich where it really mattered: in dedicated faculty and enthusiastic students.
But what does it mean to be a “magnet” school? I've already noted that this means that Masterman is in its community, but not fully of it. This itself isn't the worst thing ever, and it seems that Spring Garden maintains its sense of community without having a single high school serving all of its residents in this age group. (Most, I think, attend Ben Franklin High School, but this school also serves families from other neighborhoods, including Farimount and parts of Northern Liberties, so it is also not really the "neighborhood school" for Spring Garden.) The more difficult thing to grapple with, for me, is the way high schools in Philadelphia are organized into hierarchies, and how this affects students sense of themselves as students. One lady we interviewed – who had had a son graduate from Masterman several years ago – described Masterman as “the good school” and Ben Franklin as “the bad school.” If this attitude is widespread, it seems it would wreak havoc on students' self esteem. The kids at Ben Franklin, if they are taught to not respect their educational environment, are probably unlikely to engage in their studies as fully as the students at Masterman, who receive the message from the community that they attend a “good” school. Furthermore, it is my understanding that eighth graders at Masterman are required to meet certain academic standards if they are to stay on for high school. I think being thrown out of one's high school – the “good” school in the community, one must remember – could be a disaster for a student's self-esteem. The problem with sorting students into various academic “tracks”, and further separating the students in these tracks into separate institutions, is that, as we have learned, children usually live up to one's expectations of them, whether positive or negative. By placing kids in “lower” schools – and popularly calling these schools “bad” – one basically writes them off without allowing them to realize their potential. This seems to me like a major issue.
Even though I am not going to be teaching at Masterman this year, I very much appreciated getting to know this school and also the surrounding community. The student life at Masterman seemed very similar to what I am familiar with, and I think I would have loved it there. Indeed, it's very exciting to be around young people who are excited about their educations and motivated to succeed and this is the story we heard about Masterman again and again. However, I would caution myself here against ignoring Masterman's problems due to the fact that they seem less severe than those of schools in the surrounding community. While it's true that this school has high achievement numbers, and low incidences of drop outs, it does not meet all of its students needs, as one teacher pointed out. There seems to be a lack of English language instruction for ELL students, who are put at a disadvantage. Also, the school is not immune from the budget cuts that have plagued all Philadelphia schools. There is no money to improve or expand the facilities even though the school is way over capacity. Overcrowded classrooms and hallways can affect education in myriad ways, including by promoting stress among an already anxious, achievement-minded population. If I were to work at Masterman, I would caution myself against maintaining a breezy, simplistic attitude of the place as a “good school” serving “good kids” who are headed for success, in contrast with many other Philadelphia youths. This narrative is too simple, and if taken seriously, would prevent one from recognizing and addressing many of the unique issues that the students here face. Like Justino, one must work tirelessly to be a conscientious steward of one's environment. There is no such thing as a school, or a community, or a student who has reached their potential. Everyone and everything is a work in progress.
Erik Nelson
The history and trajectory of the JR Masterman School and the surrounding Spring Garden district have run on parallel tracks, improving over the years to become, in their own way, models for the rest of the city to aspire to. Masterman, for its part, is consistently one of the highest-performing schools in both the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. Nationally recognized for academic excellence by such reputable sources as U.S. News & World Report, named a National Blue Ribbon School, Masterman produces an annual crop of college-ready graduating seniors bound for success. Year after year their students are sent to Ivy League universities and are recognized country-wide for their academic achievements. The Spring Garden community, on the other hand, has experienced success in its own right, emerging from its days as haven for drugs, violence, and crime to become one of Philadelphia's most desired neighborhoods to live in. Streets that once were unsafe to walk down have see a revival of late, as families move in, kids play safely in the park, and unity and vegetables are simultaneously cultivated at the community garden.
Despite their common success and proximity (Masterman is located within neighborhood boundaries, mere blocks from the hub of Spring Garden), the two entities have little else in common. The children of Spring Garden are not students of Masterman, and the students of Masterman do not interact with the community apart from attending school there. The lack of a relationship between the two is surprising to an outsider, yet not uncommon in the city. Based on the current state of affairs in Philadelphia, this separation between schools and community is, sadly, not an unusual occurrence. This school has not been shaped by the forces at work within its community, but rather by larger influences that have reconstructed the entire landscape of education in the city. Failing schools, failing funds, and failing leadership have forced students, families, and communities to make short-term decisions about their own education that may not be the best in the long run, but are necessary in the present. If a parent has the opportunity to remove their child from a failing neighborhood school and place them into a high-achieving magnet school, no one should stop them. Unfortunately, this inevitably leads to an evacuation of a neighborhood school's most valuable assets (teachers and students) to an already successful magnet or charter school. For those that are lucky enough to get out, their future prospects increase dramatically. Such a mass exodus, though, dooms those left behind to years of inferior education and diminished expectations.
So, now what? As a student-teacher, what is my role in a high-achieving magnet school going to consist of? What lessons have I learned that will be challenged, changed, or reinforced in my time at Masterman? Based solely on our summer courses, fieldwork, and ethnography, I've got way more questions than answers. The most difficult quandary that I've been wrestling with is, How is Masterman representative of an "urban school"? And is it at all? In the sense that it's located within a city, it is clearly urban. But if "urban school" is defined by school culture, success, and environment, Masterman certainly does not fit my perception that has been shaped both by preconceived notions and class discussions. Sure, the school is overcrowded and underfunded, but its teachers are highly qualified, its students high achieving, its graduation rates stellar. My image of an inner-city school is a place where teachers are uncertified, students are unmotivated, and resources are nonexistent. Masterman, as I understand it so far, is the antithesis of that picture. Every class, we discuss promoting social justice in education; Masterman seems like it may be the model for social justice that we're aiming for. It is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. Students from all walks of life are served - the rich, the poor, and the in-betweens, the blacks, the whites, and the browns. Seemingly the only area where it falls short is its under-representation of "disabled" students. From interviews with teachers, it seems that my biggest concern as a new teacher (classroom management) will not be much of a difficulty in this environment where students need no further motivation to learn.
It's not only at Masterman where my perceptions have been altered; even my fieldwork students demolished my preconceived notion of "city kids". They were dedicated and motivated, hard-working and goal-oriented. They were autonomous and skilled, requiring little guidance and instruction from me along the way. Coming into this program, I expected to be working in the worst schools, the worst environments, teaching the "worst students". I think the aims of social justice might be more easily identified in situations where students are glaringly underprivileged - places where children have far greater concerns than going to school or passing test. Now what I am thinking about is what it means to promote social justice at a place like Masterman, where from the outside, it seems to be doing just fine. Even as I think about this writing, I realize that I am already placing students in a box labeled "Masterman". Just because they go to a high-achieving school doesn't tell me anything about their personal backgrounds - it is imperative that I still see each of them as blank slates, and only begin to define them as I get to know them as individuals. I need to try to separate the student from my perception of the school and realize they are not robots. They're people with dreams and goals and hopes and fears, and I need to treat them as such, just as I would need to do if I was in a struggling neighborhood school. As I go into this year, I need to know who I am - that's it. I will learn who my students are, and the best way to do that is by being myself and making an effort to know them.
There is another muddy dilemma that I can't quite shake from my mind as I think about Masterman. All the students from there are coming from somewhere else. The best students from communities throughout Philly leave their neighborhoods to attend Masterman and Central and SLA. And they should strive to earn the best education they possibly can. But my heart aches for all those students who can't get out, who are stuck in a vicious cycle of inadequate education and squashed dreams. What happens to those schools? What happens to those kids? Masterman is a wonderful school; but is its existence (along with many other schools like it) worth the price that the neighborhood schools and students pay? I wish there was an easy fix. I wish there was a way to improve the quality of all of our schools so that every child would have an equal opportunity to succeed. But I don't know if there is a light at the end of that very dark tunnel. And I don't know if there's anything I can do to help find it, but I'm hopeful that the lessons I learn at Masterman will give me starting point.
The history and trajectory of the JR Masterman School and the surrounding Spring Garden district have run on parallel tracks, improving over the years to become, in their own way, models for the rest of the city to aspire to. Masterman, for its part, is consistently one of the highest-performing schools in both the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. Nationally recognized for academic excellence by such reputable sources as U.S. News & World Report, named a National Blue Ribbon School, Masterman produces an annual crop of college-ready graduating seniors bound for success. Year after year their students are sent to Ivy League universities and are recognized country-wide for their academic achievements. The Spring Garden community, on the other hand, has experienced success in its own right, emerging from its days as haven for drugs, violence, and crime to become one of Philadelphia's most desired neighborhoods to live in. Streets that once were unsafe to walk down have see a revival of late, as families move in, kids play safely in the park, and unity and vegetables are simultaneously cultivated at the community garden.
Despite their common success and proximity (Masterman is located within neighborhood boundaries, mere blocks from the hub of Spring Garden), the two entities have little else in common. The children of Spring Garden are not students of Masterman, and the students of Masterman do not interact with the community apart from attending school there. The lack of a relationship between the two is surprising to an outsider, yet not uncommon in the city. Based on the current state of affairs in Philadelphia, this separation between schools and community is, sadly, not an unusual occurrence. This school has not been shaped by the forces at work within its community, but rather by larger influences that have reconstructed the entire landscape of education in the city. Failing schools, failing funds, and failing leadership have forced students, families, and communities to make short-term decisions about their own education that may not be the best in the long run, but are necessary in the present. If a parent has the opportunity to remove their child from a failing neighborhood school and place them into a high-achieving magnet school, no one should stop them. Unfortunately, this inevitably leads to an evacuation of a neighborhood school's most valuable assets (teachers and students) to an already successful magnet or charter school. For those that are lucky enough to get out, their future prospects increase dramatically. Such a mass exodus, though, dooms those left behind to years of inferior education and diminished expectations.
So, now what? As a student-teacher, what is my role in a high-achieving magnet school going to consist of? What lessons have I learned that will be challenged, changed, or reinforced in my time at Masterman? Based solely on our summer courses, fieldwork, and ethnography, I've got way more questions than answers. The most difficult quandary that I've been wrestling with is, How is Masterman representative of an "urban school"? And is it at all? In the sense that it's located within a city, it is clearly urban. But if "urban school" is defined by school culture, success, and environment, Masterman certainly does not fit my perception that has been shaped both by preconceived notions and class discussions. Sure, the school is overcrowded and underfunded, but its teachers are highly qualified, its students high achieving, its graduation rates stellar. My image of an inner-city school is a place where teachers are uncertified, students are unmotivated, and resources are nonexistent. Masterman, as I understand it so far, is the antithesis of that picture. Every class, we discuss promoting social justice in education; Masterman seems like it may be the model for social justice that we're aiming for. It is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background. Students from all walks of life are served - the rich, the poor, and the in-betweens, the blacks, the whites, and the browns. Seemingly the only area where it falls short is its under-representation of "disabled" students. From interviews with teachers, it seems that my biggest concern as a new teacher (classroom management) will not be much of a difficulty in this environment where students need no further motivation to learn.
It's not only at Masterman where my perceptions have been altered; even my fieldwork students demolished my preconceived notion of "city kids". They were dedicated and motivated, hard-working and goal-oriented. They were autonomous and skilled, requiring little guidance and instruction from me along the way. Coming into this program, I expected to be working in the worst schools, the worst environments, teaching the "worst students". I think the aims of social justice might be more easily identified in situations where students are glaringly underprivileged - places where children have far greater concerns than going to school or passing test. Now what I am thinking about is what it means to promote social justice at a place like Masterman, where from the outside, it seems to be doing just fine. Even as I think about this writing, I realize that I am already placing students in a box labeled "Masterman". Just because they go to a high-achieving school doesn't tell me anything about their personal backgrounds - it is imperative that I still see each of them as blank slates, and only begin to define them as I get to know them as individuals. I need to try to separate the student from my perception of the school and realize they are not robots. They're people with dreams and goals and hopes and fears, and I need to treat them as such, just as I would need to do if I was in a struggling neighborhood school. As I go into this year, I need to know who I am - that's it. I will learn who my students are, and the best way to do that is by being myself and making an effort to know them.
There is another muddy dilemma that I can't quite shake from my mind as I think about Masterman. All the students from there are coming from somewhere else. The best students from communities throughout Philly leave their neighborhoods to attend Masterman and Central and SLA. And they should strive to earn the best education they possibly can. But my heart aches for all those students who can't get out, who are stuck in a vicious cycle of inadequate education and squashed dreams. What happens to those schools? What happens to those kids? Masterman is a wonderful school; but is its existence (along with many other schools like it) worth the price that the neighborhood schools and students pay? I wish there was an easy fix. I wish there was a way to improve the quality of all of our schools so that every child would have an equal opportunity to succeed. But I don't know if there is a light at the end of that very dark tunnel. And I don't know if there's anything I can do to help find it, but I'm hopeful that the lessons I learn at Masterman will give me starting point.
Paul Hermans
While working on this project, we spent some time finding and looking at the demographics of both the school and the neighborhood. While in class we had been reading about how unfair policies had forced the creation of poor neighborhoods throughout the city, or how the City of Philadelphia has a variety of school types including Magnet, Charter and Neighborhood schools. We discussed what it meant to be an "urban school" and what type of issues often comes with that designation. To name a few, poverty, fewer certified teachers, ethnic diversity, racial tensions and of course lack of funding. Although I have lived near Philadelphia when I was younger, I have not spent very much time in the city. As a result, when somebody told me that Masterman was a magnet school located in the Spring Garden neighborhood it meant very little to me except for a vague recollection of Spring Garden being a "bad" neighborhood. Although I was fuzzy on the details, I knew that the mid 1980s Spring Garden area had a big problem with crime, so when I learned that I would be student teaching at a school called Masterman and it was in the Spring Garden area, I had visions of a very poor, drug and gang infested, crime ridden neighborhood. Through our readings and class discussions, I learned a little about the various types of schools in the Philadelphia School District but not really enough to have strong opinions about the pros and cons of any of them. I had also heard that Masterman was an excellent magnet school, by some measures, top in the state. However, because of my preconceptions of the neighborhood I was a little leery of teaching there. So it was with a little trepidation that I set out to visit the neighborhood to see for myself, what it was all about and was delighted to find that if this reputation was once deserved, it has changed significantly and that I could not have been more wrong.
While some of the people that we interviewed made reference to the old problems of drugs and violence in the neighborhood, without exception they all indicated that things had changed for the better. The buildings were generally in good repair, children walked the street and played in the neighborhood playground. It is a beautiful, quiet residential neighborhood. So as I worked through changing my perceptions, I noted that there were several high schools within a few blocks of one another. When I asked about this, people generally indicated that the three schools represented the High, Medium and Low achievers, or "good kids" and "bad kids". This caused me to wonder what the impact on the students at the "low" school was. How does having such a high performing school within a few blocks affect the morale, as well as the makeup of the school? I was not able to research this at all, and I don't know if any students from the actual neighborhood attend Masterman, but my sense was that there are very few. So while Masterman is undeniably a community of talented, motivated students, teachers and administrators and parents, it also appears to exist in isolation from from the physical neighborhood around it.
So what does this mean for me as a student teacher in Masterman? The truth is, I don't really know. What I do know is that I am very intrigued and excited to learn more about a school that has managed to navigate difficult economics, shortage of space and an old building to create one of the most successful schools in Philadelphia. This success is of course due to the school community, which we learned consists of many capable administrators, certified teachers, committed parents and of course, hard working, talented and motivated students. While I am excited to become part of this community, and look forward to both challenging and being challenged by these students, I have minor concerns. Masterman is rated as a top school largely based on their excellent test scores, their website discusses their achievements in terms of scoring on tests, graduation rates and college acceptance rates. All of these are important statistics, but I worry about the style of education a little, are we producing young test taking robots, or are we truly teaching the students to think and the test scores are a result of this? Again I don't really know, but my only interaction with a student of Masterman came through my summer fieldwork site, and based on that I am hopeful that I will find very few robots at Masterman. I am excited about the prospect of getting to know the students as individuals, not just statistics on a demographics chart. I hope to learn more about issues that affect their being while simultaneously helping them discover the ability to use mathematics as a tool to understand and communicate about the world around them.
While working on this project, we spent some time finding and looking at the demographics of both the school and the neighborhood. While in class we had been reading about how unfair policies had forced the creation of poor neighborhoods throughout the city, or how the City of Philadelphia has a variety of school types including Magnet, Charter and Neighborhood schools. We discussed what it meant to be an "urban school" and what type of issues often comes with that designation. To name a few, poverty, fewer certified teachers, ethnic diversity, racial tensions and of course lack of funding. Although I have lived near Philadelphia when I was younger, I have not spent very much time in the city. As a result, when somebody told me that Masterman was a magnet school located in the Spring Garden neighborhood it meant very little to me except for a vague recollection of Spring Garden being a "bad" neighborhood. Although I was fuzzy on the details, I knew that the mid 1980s Spring Garden area had a big problem with crime, so when I learned that I would be student teaching at a school called Masterman and it was in the Spring Garden area, I had visions of a very poor, drug and gang infested, crime ridden neighborhood. Through our readings and class discussions, I learned a little about the various types of schools in the Philadelphia School District but not really enough to have strong opinions about the pros and cons of any of them. I had also heard that Masterman was an excellent magnet school, by some measures, top in the state. However, because of my preconceptions of the neighborhood I was a little leery of teaching there. So it was with a little trepidation that I set out to visit the neighborhood to see for myself, what it was all about and was delighted to find that if this reputation was once deserved, it has changed significantly and that I could not have been more wrong.
While some of the people that we interviewed made reference to the old problems of drugs and violence in the neighborhood, without exception they all indicated that things had changed for the better. The buildings were generally in good repair, children walked the street and played in the neighborhood playground. It is a beautiful, quiet residential neighborhood. So as I worked through changing my perceptions, I noted that there were several high schools within a few blocks of one another. When I asked about this, people generally indicated that the three schools represented the High, Medium and Low achievers, or "good kids" and "bad kids". This caused me to wonder what the impact on the students at the "low" school was. How does having such a high performing school within a few blocks affect the morale, as well as the makeup of the school? I was not able to research this at all, and I don't know if any students from the actual neighborhood attend Masterman, but my sense was that there are very few. So while Masterman is undeniably a community of talented, motivated students, teachers and administrators and parents, it also appears to exist in isolation from from the physical neighborhood around it.
So what does this mean for me as a student teacher in Masterman? The truth is, I don't really know. What I do know is that I am very intrigued and excited to learn more about a school that has managed to navigate difficult economics, shortage of space and an old building to create one of the most successful schools in Philadelphia. This success is of course due to the school community, which we learned consists of many capable administrators, certified teachers, committed parents and of course, hard working, talented and motivated students. While I am excited to become part of this community, and look forward to both challenging and being challenged by these students, I have minor concerns. Masterman is rated as a top school largely based on their excellent test scores, their website discusses their achievements in terms of scoring on tests, graduation rates and college acceptance rates. All of these are important statistics, but I worry about the style of education a little, are we producing young test taking robots, or are we truly teaching the students to think and the test scores are a result of this? Again I don't really know, but my only interaction with a student of Masterman came through my summer fieldwork site, and based on that I am hopeful that I will find very few robots at Masterman. I am excited about the prospect of getting to know the students as individuals, not just statistics on a demographics chart. I hope to learn more about issues that affect their being while simultaneously helping them discover the ability to use mathematics as a tool to understand and communicate about the world around them.