Alum Jim Amaral has created an innovative class for junior high school students.

Release Date: 05/28/09

Hannah Gruber
Contributing Writer

When adults look back over some of their most unpleasant educational experiences, the seventh grade often leaps to mind. Bigger schools, awkward transitions, and a general sense of confusion often don't rank favorably in people's memories.

Jim Amaral's class seeks to change that.

Amaral, 54, interacts with about 340 seventh graders a week at Oak-Land Junior High School, and while he never planned on being a teacher by trade he said it's his mission to remember each name and build relationships that have a lasting, positive impact.

"Nobody likes this age, not even adults who reflect back at this age," said Amaral. "People are afraid of this generation, but (the kids) want to succeed. They need adult guidance, and if they are going to develop ethics they need it demonstrated to them."

While only in his second year of teaching at Oak-Land, he said he's quickly adjusted to the profession.

"I'm new at this, so I'm looking to stand on the shoulders of the pros," he said of his fellow Oak-Land teachers and friends, including mentor and Minnesota 2008 Teacher of the Year Derek Olson.

Originally graduating from Suny the State University of New York with a degree in engineering, Amaral spent 10 years in the military aboard a nuclear submarine. Afterward he spent some time as chief information officer for the Chicago Board of Trade, known as the world's oldest futures and options exchange. He then came to realize he didn't want to invest more time in the corporate world.

Before considering entering the teaching profession, he volunteered at some of his chidrens' schools, including Afton-Lakeland Elementary School. After many of the teachers questioned why he wasn't teaching, Amaral asked himself the same question - then decided to pursue a master's in education from the College of St. Scholastica in Duluth.

About a year after he received his master's, Oak-Land was in the process of creating a new class called "Global Concepts." School administrators pursued him both to write the curriculum and to teach the class.

He said he integrates his knowledge from the military and the corporate world into his class, also taking the concepts his kids are learning in their science, math and social studies classes and applying those concepts to real-life situations. Amaral's entire class is online, making use of blogging, videos, and the Internet.

"I'm trying to show the students at Oak-Land that it's not all about them," he said. "There is a whole world out there and I want to give them the practice (in this class) that they need to exceed in life."

Most importantly, he said, they need the ability to think critically for themselves - a skill best accomplished through writing and weekly blog exercises on an interactive Website that is protected by the school's server.

"They see things in blogs that they have never thought of before," he said. "What's great is that it allows kids to teach kids. The goal is that it will help improve communication."

Amaral's class is technology-savvy; it's even using technology to help reach the next batch of seventh graders preparing to attend Oak-Land next year through a program he co-founded with Olson. Each year at the end of May his class videoconferences sixth graders from six to seven feeder schools, talking with them about their junior high experience.

The program started last year and was tested on Afton-Lakeland since Amaral already had connections established there. Since it was so successful, Oak-Land's Parent Teacher Association and The Partnership Plan, a financial resource that provides special funding for Stillwater public schools, decided to fund the program and expand it to reach additional surrounding schools.

"When sixth graders prepare to go to junior high they hear all sorts of things like the lunches suck, kids are stuffed in lockers and the teachers are mean. By kids talking to kids there is more credibility than if I would try to reassure them about junior high," said Amaral.

The sixth graders became seventh graders who are now eighth graders who still make their way back to Amaral's classroom, whether it's to grab a snack from his infamous snack cabinet, to check in before a track meet or to just say hello. Amaral hopes the class continues to reach and impact students, preparing them not only for higher grade levels, but for life outside of school.

"Junior high is where we lose them, whether to drugs or whatever. I feel a responsibility to help these kids be the best generation ever," said Amaral.