, Author at My Learning Springboard

Jaime Mezon

August 21, 2014

Jaime Mezon is passionate educator and private tutor. Most recently, he was on faculty at The Elisabeth Morrow School as a first grade head teacher. Before that, Jaime was on faculty at Avenues in Chelsea where he was a teacher in a Spanish immersion section of kindergarten. Additionally, Jaime worked as an admissions consultant for Avenues. As an admission consultant, Jaime assessed a variety of incoming students through model lessons and hosted playgroups. He joined Avenues from P.S./I.S. 210, Twenty-First Century Academy for Community Leadership in Manhattan, where he worked as a teacher in a bilingual special education fifth grade classroom.

Prior to P.S./I.S. 210, Jaime Mezon was an assistant teacher, supporting classroom teachers in an inclusive special education kindergarten classroom at P.S. 029 in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. He facilitated the Kids Club after-school enrichment program, where he practiced motor skills with lower elementary students through arts and crafts and provided homework support to middle school students. Prior to this role, he provided language instruction to emergent bilingual Spanish-speaking students, and tutored K-6 students in various subjects through the Alianza Dominicana MOSAIC Beacon in the Bronx. Jaime creates an environment where children are motivated and confident in their abilities to perform above expectations. He is skilled in both Wilson’s reading system and Fundations, both Orton-Gillingham based curricula, as well as Handwriting without Tears, TERC Investigations, GO Math, Math in Focus, Singapore Math and ReadyGEN.

Jaime Mezon received a B.A. in Economics from SUNY New Paltz and an M.S.Ed. in Bilingual Special Education from the City College of New York. He is fluent in both Spanish and English.

In his free time, Jaime enjoys reading, traveling, playing basketball, and spending time with family.

Things to Consider When Going to an Art Exhibition

August 20, 2014 Brad Hoffman

1.Notice the way you move around the art exhibition. What are you looking at first, third, fifth, and last?

Often, the order that things are placed in an exhibition is intentional. There is a progression within the exhibition. Sometimes, the exhibition is designed a specific way in order to distinguish historical differences. Other times, the reasons are more subtle. For example, in historical exhibition, the tour may start with actual historical items, and end with a response that is theoretical.

2. Approach an art exhibition like an essay.

For example, what is the thesis statement of the exhibition? It is easy to get distracted by why YOU are going to a museum and what YOU want to learn. These are important questions. While asking them, remember that teams of people have put together a lesson plan for you that is diagrammed, and expressed in the exhibition.

3.Where are things displayed?

Often curators talk to their different audiences through design. For example, curators might talk to an adult audience using higher placed text panels, and may talk to a more youthful audience with lower text panels. Hints as to which audience is being addressed are found in font, and size of text. For children, text is usually written in fonts that are more cursive, less linear, larger print, and fewer words. Adult text tends to be smaller in scale.

Curators are also very aware of adults’ attention span. The most important and basic information is often at the top of the panel, bolded, and larger. As the explanatory text continues it assumes the reader wants to be reading it. The explanation will be more thorough.

4.What do you see?

Take mental note of visual facts: color of the object, shape, material etc. The transition to understanding what meaning may be in the object or artwork is tricky. However, it is possible, and most accurate, when you first look at facts, and then try to interpret.

5.What is the object?

Have you seen this object before? Where? In a car, kitchen, school, etc? Now that you are looking at this object in a museum, has its purpose, or function changed?

Written by: Editorial Team, My Learning Springboard, Inc.

Why Grammar is Amazing. Seriously.

August 19, 2014 Brad Hoffman

I hated being taught grammar. Seventh grade seemed to me to be an endless parade of rules and regulations and proper ways of doing things. I read a lot growing up, R.L. Stein and Stephen King and Michael Crichton, and I felt like I knew what I was doing, so why did I need to learn about how language worked if I was already using it?

To my 12 year old self, my seventh grade English classroom was where language went to die; the magic of words – their ability to transport you, to capture a feeling you thought no one else experienced, or to embody a sense of rhythm and rhyme that is very nearly musical – was stripped away and in its place was left that ugly seven letter word: grammar.

So what is grammar? Linguists, who study language for a living have said that it can mean many things- including the way a person actually speaks. “I ain’t gonna go” – or the conventions of language we are taught in school – “don’t end a sentence with a preposition.”

These linguists stress that no use of language is inherently better than others. Some uses, however, carry greater social currency: Standard Edited English, a dialect that is usually learned rather than spoken naturally, is what we’re expected to master in order to get good grades and eventually a job.

The rules of grammar (proper semicolon usage, subject / verb agreement, consistent verb tense) are empowering and effective tools because they help you express yourself clearly and guide your reader. They allow you to be understood. By mastering them and showing the reader you care about their ability to comprehend what you’re saying, you already have a leg up in terms of winning their trust and establishing your own credibility.

Grammar is technique, not magic. It is craft. But only through the mastery of craft can you use language to clearly express a thought and maybe even soar to the great heights that forge a meaningful connection between you and your audience.

By Andrew Laudel, Private Tutor

Is Your Child More Hooked on the iPad Than They are on Phonics?

August 18, 2014 Brad Hoffman

Is your child more hooked on the iPad than they are phonics? Well, you are not alone. This seems to be the case with many young children.

In fact, I have come to believe that a three year old would probably do a better job at navigating their way through an iPad than I can. Although children love up-and-coming technology, they are shying away from their educational needs such as reading and writing.

Because of this, the digital world has come up with a solution to this issue. Tablets, iPads and other mobile devices have games in which a child can play and learn at the same time! These educational games and activities are available for children of all ages and most can even be played without wireless. It is truly incredible what the techies of the world have done for us and our children.

Starting with children who are three to four years old, there are applications that will keep their attention as well as teach them information that they will need to know before entering kindergarten.

A few apps that many have found to be useful for these particular age groups are, “ABC Go”, “Fish School”, “Interactive Alphabet” and “Starfall ABC’s”.

These applications allow the child to explore the world of the alphabet and numbers in a way that is fun and user friendly. As children get older and enter the secondary grades in elementary school applications such as “BrainQuest”, “Geography Drive USA” and “Dot-to-Dot Adventure” can be helpful tools to use to get ready for middle school.

Students entering and enrolled in middle school are learning more difficult lessons and topics. These applications will help these children with essay writing and larger scale projects in which they might come in contact with during these grades: “Middle School Writing”, “MathBoard”, “Periodic Table of the Elements” and “MyCongress.”

So go on, let your child use your iPad or tablet. They’ll play games and have a great time, possibly without even knowing that they are really learning!

By Samantha Yanofsky, Private Tutor

Parents Have the Power to Challenge Educational Complacency

August 15, 2014 Brad Hoffman

The week before Present Obama delivered his State of the Union address, Thomas Friedman suggested that Arne Duncan, secretary of Education had already given it. As Friedman Wrote in his column on January, 19^th, “it was not a laundry list and it wasn’t a feel good speech.”

Secretary Duncan’s speech to the National Assessment Governing Board’s Education Summit for Parent Leaders asked one big question: “Are we falling behind as a country in education because we fail to recruit the smartest college students to become teachers or is it because too many parents and too many kids just don’t want to put the work?

Its time for parents to become more proactive when it comes to improving our schools. The National PTA recently helped organize the Take Your Family to School Week, designed to build partnerships between families and schools. They encouraged parents to organize events such as parent-teacher breakfasts, game nights and workshops on how to help your children learn at home. The PTA encouraged parents to stay in touch with teachers via email, check homework every night, and teach students the consequences for their choices such as: “I choose to do my homework and received an “A” on my quiz or I chose to get up late, and missed the school bus..” A report from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) surveyed 25,000 students in 8 ^th grade, again in 10 ^th, and lastly in 12 ^th. The students’ responses – along with surveys of their parents and educators, and academic data – showed that parental involvement in school correlates with high grade point averages.

As we have seen, parents in South Korea, Singapore and Finland, have the muscle to challenge educational complacency. We must do the same and ask more of our leaders and ask more of our progeny. Amanda Ripley’s new book – “The Smartest Kids in the World and how they got that Way” Duncan says, “Amanda points a finger at you and me as parents – not because we aren’t involved in school, but because too often we are involved in the wrong way.”

Parents, she says, are happy to show up at sports events, video camera in hand, and they’ll come to school to protest a bad grade. But she writes, “Parents did not tend to show up at schools demanding that their kids be assigned more challenging reading or that their kindergartners learn math…’

To really help our kids we have to do so much more as parents. We have to change expectations about how hard kids should work. And we have to work with teachers and leaders to create schools that demand more from our kids.

By Deborah H. Friedman, Learning Specialist

Jaime Mezon

Things to Consider When Going to an Art Exhibition

Why Grammar is Amazing. Seriously.

Is Your Child More Hooked on the iPad Than They are on Phonics?

Parents Have the Power to Challenge Educational Complacency

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