Academy Helps Students Make Transition To Ferris

In a new summer course at Ferris High School, English teacher Todd Bender told some of next year’s freshmen that their brains are wired in different ways.

After taking personality tests last week, the students were divided into groups and asked to design team posters of the perfect world.

One group depicted a neatly drawn blue and green globe. They were the concrete sequential thinkers. “I’d be willing to bet that they probably have the cleanest bedrooms of anyone here,” Bender told the class.

Another group had a mishmash of writings, drawings, glitter and glue.

“I’ll bet you these people have lots of posters on their walls and one shoe under their beds and another in the living room,” he said.

They were the abstract random thinkers.

The point wasn’t that the students could predict the cleanliness or creativeness of each other’s bedrooms. Rather, that by discovering which way their brains processed information, each student could learn more effectively, Bender said.

Each type of thinker - concrete sequential, concrete random, abstract sequential and abstract random - has strengths and weaknesses.

The lesson was part of a weeklong summer academy that was only a little bit about the brain but a lot about preparing the 37 Chase and Sacajawea Middle School students for their upcoming transition to Ferris.

“We’re trying to give them skills to optimize their learning,” said teacher Sharon Straub, who developed the Ferris academy concept with Assistant Principal Pamela Sturgeon in April. Straub recently retired after teaching 30 years.

She said the academy has a typical cross-section of students based on recommendations by their teachers and counselors. While in the academy, the students receive an orientation to the school, review fundamental skills such as math and English, and learn teamwork and personal organization. The students also receive a package of school equipment, including a calculator, dictionary, thesaurus and atlas.

“A lot of the students don’t necessarily have these tools, and they are so important” Straub said. She said that teachers recognize the transitions students make from elementary to middle school and from middle to high school can be difficult.

In particular, the size of high schools like Ferris can be daunting, Straub said. Ferris has about 2,000 students, while Chase, in comparison, has 880.

There are several programs at Ferris designed to help incoming freshmen, including the successful yearlong Link Crew program. The academy is just one more “piece of the puzzle,” she said, to help students have a successful high school experience.

Student Ashley Gordon, 14, said she was a little nervous about getting lost at Ferris, which is why she volunteered for the academy. She has had some trouble in math and science classes and wants to improve her skills, although she’s not so enthusiastic about science.

“You use math every day,” she said. “I guess you don’t really need science unless you’re, like, a scientist.”

After the course, Gordon might change her mind. One of the goals of the academy, Straub said, is to teach students that all the courses they learn are applicable to everyday life.

Today - dubbed Pizza Day - the class will take a field trip to the Round Table Pizza on South Regal, where owner Skip Webster will talk about how he uses math, science, social studies and communication skills every day running his business, Straub said.

A team of teachers helped Straub craft and teach the academy. They were Jaime Hanlon, Joe Everson, Todd Bender, Donna Herold, Kathy Agate, Nina Coppay, Kelly Kight and Bill Christiansen.

The academy has a budget of $12,000.