Teaching Context: The Need for Chemistry in an Inner-City Continuation School
I teach at an inner-city continuation school in San Francisco where every student has a history of academic struggle. They are assigned to us by the district when failing grades and severe truancy place them at risk of dropping out. The fact that all of my students are students of color is representative of the achievement gap within our district. While San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) high school students are, on average, 21% Latino and 12% African American, our site is typically 40% Latino and 35% African American, 1 evidence that these students have been disproportionately underserved. While students have a wide range of critical thinking ability, most struggle with basic academic proficiencies; it is not uncommon for me to have zero students during a semester who both read and write at grade level. Many students also lack academic confidence; after years of facing low expectations in school, they do not trust in their intelligence or abilities, resulting in severe underachievement. In this context, it is my responsibility to both re-engage students in their education and to offer the structured rigor they need to begin catching up on academic skills.
Because our school is often the last formal educational experience many of our students will have, I believe it is imperative to offer a rigorous academic curriculum that enables students to move through the world as knowledgeable and informed people. This unit represents the first time in my fifteen years at Downtown High School (DHS) that chemistry has been offered to our students. Hard sciences such as chemistry are gateway subjects that can provide opportunities to students but, in the SFUSD, only two years of science are required for graduation. Because chemistry is often placed last in comprehensive high school science sequences—typically the realm of students on college preparatory trajectories—very few of my students have ever taken a chemistry course, and most do not view themselves as capable of learning higher-level science. While this unit does not take a traditional approach to chemistry, it will allow my students to explore and practice a subject they may have previously viewed as beyond their capabilities. By integrating chemistry and social justice issues, chemistry is made accessible to students in that it is placed within a context that connects directly to their own lives. The content and skills embedded in this unit have the potential to be very important in helping students navigate the realities in which they live. It is my job as the teacher to utilize strategies that will help all of my students access the curriculum.
This unit will be taught within an interdisciplinary environmental studies program called the Wilderness Arts and Literacy Collaborative (WALC). WALC uses environmental themes and corresponding core science as a center around which multiple subject areas are integrated. "The Science of Environmental Justice" will be an eight-week unit within an eighteen-week semester themed "Struggling for Sustainability: Preservation, Restoration, and Environmental Justice." It will take place in the second quarter of the fall semester, beginning in November and concluding in January.
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