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Enhancing Educational Excellence: Academic Achievement of English Learners Through an Eight Week Coaching Cycle
No full textThis study examined the effectiveness of an eight-week Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) coaching cycle on improving instructional strategies for English Learners (ELs) in seventh-grade classrooms. The goal was to enhance the literacy performance of ELs by 15% on the LAS Links literacy subtest. The coaching cycle aimed to integrate SIOP strategies aligned with Connecticut English Language Proficiency Standard 1 and Standard 4, focusing on literacy improvement among ELs. Qualitative and quantitative methods were used to assess the impact of a) providing teachers with an eight-week SIOP coaching cycle and b) enhancing their instructional strategies for ELs. Evaluation methods included pre- and post-intervention surveys, open-ended questions, video observations, meeting agendas, stakeholder conversations, and student exit ticket data. While teachers perceived positive changes in their instructional practices for ELs after the coaching cycle, other data did not consistently support these perceptions. Additionally, the study indicated that while the coaching cycle benefited non-EL students, it exacerbated the achievement gap between non-EL and EL students. This research sought to improve teachers\u27 ability to support ELs academically but highlights challenges in bridging the achievement gap in diverse classrooms
Diontay Santiago
No full textSummary by Lauren Payne
Diontay Santiago, a rising senior at Fordham University, discussed the impact of COVID-19 on his academic and personal life. He highlighted the loss of access to campus resources like gyms and libraries, which has affected his fitness and study routines. As President of the Black Student Alliance, he noted increased Zoom calls and social media use to connect students. Diontay emphasized the challenges of remote learning and the need for tangible resources for students. He also addressed the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the South Bronx and the importance of protests against racial injustices despite media misrepresentation
Ingrid Cardona
No full textDisciplines
African American Studies Abstract
Summary by Jocelyn Defex.
In this oral history interview for the Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project, Grace Schmidt and Allison Lecce interview Ingrid Cardona, the Food and Nutrition Department Operations Manager at St. Barnabas Hospital in the Bronx. Ingrid discusses her background, her role in food service management at the hospital, and the adaptations her department made during the pandemic. Ingrid, raised in the Bronx, has worked at St. Barnabas for over two decades, initially joining due to a connection through her mother.
In her role, Ingrid manages food safety standards and oversees a unionized team that prepares over 1,500 meals daily for patients, staff, and visitors. When the pandemic began, her team had to adjust operations by switching to disposable serving items, creating grab-and-go options, and implementing strict sanitization protocols. Ingrid also shares the personal challenges she faced: her husband, a St. Barnabas telecommunications worker, was one of the first employees infected with COVID-19, and she adopted strict hygiene protocols at home to protect her two young daughters.
Ingrid describes the heightened workload and stress for staff, who worked extended hours to meet the needs of a growing patient population. The hospital provided free meals for staff to support morale during this challenging period. With her children home due to school closures, Ingrid relied on her retired father for childcare. Balancing her demanding work with family responsibilities took a toll on her mental health, exacerbating her anxiety. Ingrid expresses gratitude for her parents\u27 support and pride in her team\u27s resilience and dedication.
Moreover, Ingrid courageously recounts the heartbreaking journey of her husband Warren\u27s battle with COVID-19. At first, Warren had a persistent cough that he attributed to allergies, though Ingrid urged him to get checked by a doctor. After being prescribed an albuterol pump and later prednisone, his condition worsened. Eventually, Ingrid took Warren to urgent care, where tests revealed severe pneumonia, prompting his immediate transfer to the hospital. In the emergency room, Ingrid felt relieved upon seeing a familiar doctor, Dr. Patty, but he warned her that her husband’s condition was dire. The hospital quickly admitted Warren, and they later placed him in isolation due to suspected COVID-19 symptoms.
Over the next few days, Warren’s health deteriorated, and he required intubation. Then, St. Barnabas transferred him to another hospital where he received experimental treatment. Unfortunately, his body struggled, and Ingrid received a series of distressing updates, eventually leading to the devastating news of his passing. In a final, intimate conversation, Warren expressed his love and found solace in believing he would reunite with his deceased parents. This emotional moment has left Ingrid grappling with unresolved feelings and loss.
Reflecting on this traumatic experience, Ingrid tearfully describes how she found the strength to care for herself and her children after losing her husband to COVID-19 while also battling the virus herself. However, it was devastating for her to be separated from her children for over a month while recovering. Her reunion with them was bittersweet because the loss of Warren impacted all of them deeply. Saint Barnabas and her community rallied around her, providing financial and emotional support through food deliveries, a GoFundMe, and a neighborhood effort to ensure her family had necessities. Her gratitude toward the hospital and her community was immense, and their support helped her cherish her husband’s memory.
The pandemic brought profound life changes, with Ingrid shouldering all responsibilities once shared with her husband, from financial burdens to daily parenting tasks. She described a grueling daily routine, working long hours while also caring for her daughters, both of whom have experienced grief-related challenges requiring therapy. Ingrid reflected on how her community united, with friends, neighbors, and even her husband’s high school classmates offering support. She noted how people across the Bronx came together to treat each other like family during the pandemic.
Also, Ingrid found solace in grief counseling sessions where others who had lost loved ones to COVID-19 could express their feelings. Finally, she highlighted the impact of COVID-19 on the Bronx and emphasized the urgent need for people to understand how deeply it affected the communities. She expressed gratitude to the interviewers, saying that sharing her experience was a part of her healing process and a way to preserve her husband’s memory for their children
Alietta Bellamy Interview
No full textAbstract Summarized by Lauren Payne
Alietta Bellamy, a Bronx elementary school teacher for 12 years, discussed her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. She teaches a small class of 22 students, primarily in ELA and math, with most living locally in the Morris Heights neighborhood. The transition to remote learning was challenging, with concerns about student asthma and technology access. Bellamy highlighted the difficulties in providing effective remote education, including the lack of immediate feedback and the impact on students\u27 mental health. She noted that about half of her students received DOE iPads, which helped but were not ideal. The pandemic also affected the school\u27s ability to provide essential services, and Bellamy expressed concerns about the long-term academic and emotional impact on her students
READING FEYERABEND BETWEEN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE, HERMENEUTICS – AND GOD
No full textThis essay seeks to make the case for reading hermeneutic philosophy of science with Feyerabend. In addition, there is the question of science, as Nietzsche raises this question along with Feyerabend’s programmatic recommendations for traditional philosophy of science. Including a discussion of method in history as in theology and philology, including Nietzsche’s hermeneutics, this essay reviews Feyerabend’s exchanges with Lakatos along with the resistance of mainstream philosophy of science to hermeneutics as such. A discussion of Feyerabend’s ‘gods’ engages what he invokes as ontological abundance as well as his criticism of the limitations of Popper’s critique of Parmenides requiring both historical/historiographical context, an understanding of science in practice, via a contextualization of Schrödinger, and via Plato’s epistemology along with Duhem on experiment and Riegl on style, crucial for Feyerabend on the notion of ‘progress,’ key for Lakatos and others, in art and science
Aspis, Harold
No full textSummarizer: Sophia Maier
Harold Aspis was born in 1954 to two American born parents. His father was a college professor of economics, and his mother returned to work as a secretary and administrator at Montefiore Hospital when Aspis was in junior high school. Aspis describes the movement of his family as “the Jewish neighborhood profession of the Bronx,” first living in University Heights and then in the North Bronx near the Bronx High School of Science, then his parents moved to Riverdale after Aspis had left the house.
Aspis attended PS 91, which he shares what a stable component of the larger stable community. In the summers, Aspis and many other Jewish families he knows went to the Catskills. It was a warm, exclusively Jewish environment with a strong sense of belonging. Everyone he knew in school, including his elementary school teachers, and the community were Jewish, despite there being Irish Catholics living there as well. He shares that the schools’ goal was to make them well rounded Americans, including reading the New York Times, going to museums and concerts in Manhattan, and wearing uniforms.
The strictness of school and unspoken rules of society would change as Aspis entered the Bronx High School of Science in 1968. Aspis describes the extraordinary teachers there, with a more diverse faculty and student population. The school, he says, was a “hotbed of political activism” then, including hosting a concert by Pete Seeger in place of a prom in 1971. Aspis himself served as the editor of the yearbook. Outside of school, from the time he was young, Aspis had a sense of freedom and independence, seeing movies with his friends and taking the subway alone. This was encouraged by the “tolerant, liberal” attitude of his parents, who gave him charge over his own life.
Aspis attended synagogue and Hebrew school, though he shares that the religiosity of his grandfather was lessened coming to America from Eastern Europe. Despite them not speaking much Yiddish, he describes his grandparents’ Jewishness in attending Yiddish theater and cooking amazing, Eastern European style food. Jewish culture, he says, infused New York.
Aspis went on the study economics at Columbia University, encountering antisemitism for the first time while studying abroad in London. He then went to Columbia Law School, working for many years as a lawyer before becoming an arbitrator in his retirement. He credits his happy memories of his childhood to the sense of security, stability, independence, and continuity of the community.
Keywords: education, University Heights, West Bronx, Bronx High School of Science, PS 91, NYU Uptown, gender, woman, Americanization, Catskills, security, Teachers Strikes 1967-1968, Vietnam War, Kent State, Pete Seeger, protest, independence, Israel, Holocaust, Irish, High Holy Days, Yiddish, food, Columbia University, London School of Economics, Riverdale, Kennedy Assassinatio
Genis, June
No full textSummarizer: Sophia Maier
June Genis lived in the Bronx from the time she was three years old until she left for college in 1963. When he father, who had been a dentist, passed away, Genis and her mother moved to Creston Avenue and 192nd Street near Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse to be closer to her family. At the time, the area was predominantly Jewish, with some Irish and Italians. They were surrounded by major shopping areas on Fordham and Kingsbridge Roads, and across the street from St. James park where Genis played as a child. Starting in sixth grade, when she began taking the subway alone, Genis would travel around Manhattan to museums. She walked a lot through Manhattan and the Bronx.
Genis attended Elizabeth Barrett Browning Junior High School and Walton High School, both public all-girls schools. She did well in school and considers it to have been a good education that set her up for success at the University of Buffalo, where she studied biology before switching to an engineering degree. A year after college, she moved to California to work in the computer center at Standford University; she then worked there for 20 years. Genis speaks to her experience as a woman and a Jew in these institutions, and how often these qualities served as both advantages and disadvantages.
Genis’ mother worked in accounting for Robert Hall Clothing in the Bronx. The family was not observant, though she did attend Sunday School in the fourth grade. They ate a lot of Chinese food, and, because of the influence of an Irish nanny, ate Irish potato pancakes before latkes and had a Christmas tree in addition to a menorah. Genis herself questions religion in general and today considers herself an atheist. Genis has also been involved in the Libertarian party since college, becoming a member in 1974.
In revisiting the Bronx, Genis saw the signs that were once in Hebrew are now in Spanish, and the ice cream stores, candy stores, and bakeries she fondly remembers are now gone. Overall, her memories of the Bronx are positive, despite once being almost mugged. It was, to her, a carefree and enjoyable upbringing.
Keywords: New Jersey, Grand Concourse, Creston Avenue, 192nd Street, Fordham Road, Kingsbridge Road, shopping, St. James Park, museums, Manhattan, Bronx Zoo, Elizabeth Barrett Browning Junior High School, Walton High School, gender, education, STEM, engineering, computers, Stanford, antisemitism, sorority, religion, atheism, University of Buffalo, food, California, crime, Libertaria
Maria Aponte Interview
No full textDisciplines
African American Studies Abstract
Summary by Jocelyn Defex.
This interview for the Bronx African American History Project was with Maria Aponte, a Non-profit organization founder, educator, author, poet, performance artist, and community arts activist. A Fordham University alum, Carlos Rico, interviewed her for the Bronx COVID-19 Oral History Project.
Aponte discusses her childhood; she grew up in “El Barrio” (Washington Heights, NY) and moved to the Bronx in the late 70s. Before becoming an activist, she was a theater actress, and she felt that her role helped to break down Latino, women, and person-of-color stereotypes in the theater. At the same time, she acknowledged how her roots connected her to her generation’s struggles, and she reflected on current protests and movements. Moreover, she explains how she is an advocate for young people. In the interview, she urges people to vote, or their protests will not have the outcomes they want.
Then, the conversation transitions to the COVID-19 pandemic. They begin talking about the impact that COVID-19 had on the Bronx community. Aponte describes the devastation the world feels, the unimaginable loss of lives, and how COVID has impacted low-income communities in worse ways than others. For example, the sounds of the ambulance and sirens reminded her of when she was a child; the world during COVID sounds the same as when parts of New York City were burning. Despite these challenges, she highlights the strength and resilience of Bronxites, emphasizing the community efforts and available resources.
Afterward, Rico asked her for her opinion about New York City\u27s “re-opening” since there were fewer COVID cases or deaths than at the beginning of the pandemic. At this, Aponte expressed uncertainty because no vaccine was available yet, and she did not know if New York residents could behave appropriately on public transportation.
Towards the end of the interview, Rico asks her if she had anything to say about herself. Aponte shared that her nonprofit organization, Latina 50 Plus, honors Latino women over 50 in various fields and discussed upcoming projects and workshops.
Finally, to end the interview, Aponte reads a segment of her book South Bronx in Black and White to describe what life was like for Bronxites during the fires and how they moved on from such tragedies through peace, hope, love, and trust
Luz Solis Interview
No full textInterviewees: Ms. Luz Soliz-Ramos , Gil
Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated ©
Interviewers: Dr. Mark Naison, Dr. Lisa Betty, Lucy Blanco
Date: December 10, 2023
Summarized by Amy Rini January 28, 2024
Ms. Luz Soliz-Ramos from Honduras, is a Garifuna dancer, choreographer, teacher, and activist. Soliz-Ramos is the founder of the Bronx based Garifuna Heritage Center for the Arts and Culture and Co-Choreographer & Artistic Director of the Wabafu Garifuna Dance Theatre, which was established as the Hamalali Wayunagu Garifuna Dance Company in 1992.
Immigration from Honduras wasn’t easy for those who only spoke Garifuna and not Spanish, and only the educated spoke Spanish. Soliz’s parents and most siblings came to the United States in the 1970s. Soliz brought one of her sister’s family over decades later. Luz, 15, started junior high school, amidst the 1970s burnt out buildings in what used to be called South Bronx, now downtown Bronx. It has developed in such a way with beautiful brand new construction and multifamily units. They developed Yankee stadium, so today that area is prime real estate.
A teacher recognized Soliz’ giftedness and placed her in a gifted program after she wrote a story about a sister who passed away at age five in Honduras. The teacher moved Soliz to an advanced program that had students who were learning to read the New York Times in the morning and had daily ESL tutoring. She learned English quickly. Her parents were strict, and she worked until 10 pm at a supermarket after school. Soliz went to James Monroe HS for four years, Marist College for two years, and changed her major to performing arts and graduated from Bard College, which had performing arts and dance education. Soliz’ father only went to third grade in Santa Rosa – Garifunas in Honduras were marginalized, not allowed education and lacked means for uniforms. Luz’ brother is a lawyer in the United States, her siblings are educated and have come a long way from that humble beginning. They now guide youngsters, who can\u27t even think about dropping out because of how her family values education.
While taking dance classes to be on Broadway, a friend offered her a job teaching dance at PS 70 on 174th St. in the Bronx. Because of the teacher shortage, the principal said “OK take third grade children just for this week and … you will have the dance program” so for ten years Soliz taught third grade and eventually dance. This position, unlike one on Broadway, allowed her to “stay close to my people.” The children would say, “Look, Miss Soliz,” and they would put on their clothes and turn, and they were feeling great.”
The Bronx African American History Project (BAAHP) is interviewing Garifuna people to address black and central American erasure. Soliz’ husband, Weddington Dramus is a historian writing and teaching urban studies – he is a Garifuna expert. Luz Soliz-Ramos’ story is one of incredible resilience and the power of education for social mobility and to sustain oneself, one’s culture and future generations.
Keywords: Garifuna, dance, Garifuna dance, bronx, people, support, organizations, Honduras, Belize, political situation, immigration, refugees, girls in Honduras, 1970s, COVID-19 in the Bronx, Lee Aca Thompson, Lavinia WilliamsYarborough, Manuela Sabio, Wanichigu Garifuna Dance Company, black erasure, central American erasure