When I met him, I had a lot of anger inside of me. I’ve lived my whole life in Spanish Harlem, but in my neighborhood, there are shoot-ups all the time. I know kids who have been shot (枪击) or beaten up. I have friends who ended up in prison. I could have ended up that way, too, but Mr. Clark wouldn’t let that happen.

Mr. Clark worked long hours, making sure I did my work. My grades rose. In fact, the scores of our whole class rose. One day, he took our class to see The Phantom of the Opera, and it was the first time some kids had ever been out of Harlem. Before the show, he treated (招待) us to dinner at a restaurant and taught us not to talk with our mouths full. We did not want to let him down.

Mr. Clark was selected (选拔) as Disney’s 2000 Teacher of the Year. He said he would draw three names (抽签) out of a hat: those students would go with him to Los Angles to get the award (奖品). But when the time came to draw names, Mr. Clark said, “You’re all going.”

On graduation day, there were a lot of tears. We didn’t want his class to end. In 2001, he moved to Atlanta, but he always kept in touch. He started giving lectures about education, and wrote a best-selling book based on his classroom rules, The Essential 55. In 2003, Mr. Clark took some of us on a trip to South Africa to deliver school supplies and visit orphanages (孤儿院). It was the most amazing experience of my life. It’s now my dream to one day start a group of women’s clubs, helping people from all backgrounds.

The Faculry of Arts and Sciences (FAS)offers undergraduates a wide range of courses to satisfy individual objectives and interests. Students are responsible for knowing the rules that apply for Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science Degmes.

GRADING SYSTEM

LETTER GRADES

●A, A-               Extraordinary performance in all respects concerning the course.

●B+, B, B-        Good comprehension and skills of the course material full involvement with the course requirements and activities.

●C+, C, C-        Meeting the basic requirements for assigned work and class activities.

●D+, D. D-       Work with minimal command and participation of the course materials and activities.

●E                    Work unsatisfactory and unworthy of the course credit.

NON-LETTER GRADES

●ABS               Students who miss a regularly scheduled midyear or final examination are given a failing grade of Absent (ABS), which will be changed only if the student is permitted to take a makeup with 32 examinations.

●EXLD            An Excluded (EXLD)indicates that the student was not permitted to continue in the course and received no credit. Exclusion from a course is equivalent in all respects to failing it.

●SAT/UNS        The grade of Satisfactory includes letter grades from A to C-; the grade of Unsatisfactory represents work below C- and is considered a failing grade.

GRADE POINT AVERAGES

A=4. 00, A-=3. 67, B+=3. 33, B=3. 00, B-=2. 67, C+=2. 33, C=2. 00, C-=1. 67, D+=1. 33, D=1. 00, D-=0. 67. E, ABS, UNS, EXLD=0.

CREDIT REQUTREMENTS

·All candidates must pass 128 credits(the equivalent of 32 4-credit courses)and receive letter grades of C-or higher in at least 84 of those credits. Each course is of 4 credits and the length of a semester.

·The only non-letter grade that counts toward the requirement of 84 satisfactory letter-graded credits is Satisfactory (SAT).

·Forty-eight of the required 84 letter-graded credits should be completed by the end of sophomore year. Ordinarily, no first-year student or sophomore may take fewer than three letter-graded courses(4 credits per course)in any term.

Luis Reynoso says he’s always tried to get involved in his children’s education: attending meetings on school-improvement projects and providing classroom food. But when his youngest daughter’s school invited families to attend a nine-week programme Let’s Change the Course organised by a leading education advocacy group here to learn about parenting and school participation, he realised his past efforts barely scratched the surface. 

Each weekly session touched on different parenting themes, like setting up a special space at home for kids to do homework, and the importance of confidence. One of the most helpful sessions, he recalls, focused on what a child should know academically in each grade and how to talk to teachers about his daughter’s performance. “The workshops really woke me up,” says Mr Reynoso.

Levels of parental participation in Mexican schools have long been low. Many people commonly believe a child’s education is the school’s job to get involved. In some parts of the country,   mother’s or father’s own lack of education can play into a sense that they have nothing to contribute. And even in private schools, where there might be more adults with fixed jobs, the participation is very rare, with some parents viewing their tuition bill as their educational contribution. There are also cases where the schools themselves ignore the potential of parents in a child’s education, discouraging communication between families and schools.

But the importance of family participation is something many non-profit education advocates and recently the government are starting to home in on Mexico. Part of Mexico’s 2013 national education reform stresses the importance of parents playing a more active role in their child’s education, encouraging an increase in parental-participation programmes, including Let’s Change the Course.

Susana Castellanos, headmaster of a school in Mexico City, says, “People are recognising you have to work together to create happy successful citizens. It’s no longer acceptable to set apart the roles of teacher vs. parent vs.school headmaster.”