La Voz

Issue date: 11/16/09 Section: A&E

Media Credit: Laura Wenus Paula Silva focuses her teaching style on creating close-knit bonds with her students.

Paula Silva, at one time a college dropout who barely graduated high school, says her teaching style is based primarily on how she was not taught. She had already been working for five years when she began college, where she says she found some instructors who were the exception to the group of teachers she had known in high school. Silva hopes to be that exception for her students.

An English teacher by trade, Silva is among the few instructors of De Anza College's First Year Experience program, a year-long commitment first-generation college students make to decrease their chances of dropping out of college. Her teaching focuses on tutoring and mentoring roughly 112 students, the second batch of FYE tutees since the program's inception last year.

The program revolves around reading, writing and sociology classes, all of which the students attend at the same time as the members of their "cluster," a group of around 25 students designed to provide a support network within the class. Silva spends the entire year with the students, helping them work through everything from essays to personal issues. Silva and her students become close knit, sharing successes as well as setbacks.

"We're a family. There's often family dynamics. When a student struggles, it becomes your struggle," Silva said.

She was recruited to teach the program by Prtofessor Jean Miller, who passed away shortly after asking Silva to join the program.

"We saw eye to eye on a lot of things," Silva said. "It's important to me to feel like the classroom is part of a larger mission to change patterns of failure and to give access to students who haven't had access to school before." She believed in the mission of the program, to support students who have a high chance of dropping out of college.

"There's a huge problem with retention and success at this school," she said.

Personal and family matters and overcoming them is a large part of Silva's job. As a result, she said, "We all get a little burnt out. Some of the challenges the students face are too complicated for teachers to [help them]."

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools