Sharing facilities gives us many options
Urban Skills Center shares the facilities of the nearby COOK Education Center, which allow for a wide variety of physical activities, permitting our students to learn new games, to improve their coordination and conditioning, to participate as a team member, and to have a lot of fun. Sports, physical education, and conditioning are also about teamwork, sportsmanship, positive social interaction, and, the opportunity to root for your friends as well as for other students. It’s about learning to be a good friend, a good neighbor.

Walks, Runs, Races, Basketball, Softball, Flag Football, Kickball
Coordination activities, Cardio activities, Strength activities,
Sports fundamentals

Getting in shape is a healthy idea
The conditioning room at COOK Education Center has the latest equipment for aerobic and strength conditioning. The room is the choice of many of our students when they have earned the opportunity to choose what they want to do. Getting in shape is a great way for our students to occupy their leisure time and it will pay health dividends as well.

Intermural sports
Male and female students can join teams that compete in the CAPSES intermural league (California Association of Private Special Education Schools) against teams from other public and nonpublic schools in the San Diego area. The COOK/USC sports teams participate in 11-man flag football; 5-man, full-court basketball; and slow pitch softball. Games are played at local sports fields and gymnasiums according to formal rules. Referees and umpires are retained by the league to officiate the games, so that they are played fairly and according to the rules. Students who have earned the opportunity on a week-by-week basis, students who can be trusted to be safe off campus, and students who meet the criteria set for them are permitted to participate in the Friday afternoon game. Win or lose, the games are a lot of fun and provide many opportunities to learn important social skills, not least of which is cheering for players to do their best.

Karate
Karate is one of our most popular electives for both men and women. COOK Education Center has its own Karate dojo (gym) under the direction of Sensei Frank McCarroll, who is a 3rd degree black belt and teaches Isshin-ryu Karate. Sensei McCarroll, who is also a credentialed educator, points out that “Karate training can be extremely beneficial for all of our students, regardless of their disability. It can serve as an excellent form of physical therapy, improving balance, coordination, strength, and flexibility; it can improve self-esteem and positive, pro-social behavior; and Karate can instill respect for the teacher and other students, which is the Karate tradition.”

Urban Skills Center students can earn all Karate belts up to and including black belt by becoming proficient in Karate “basics” and in “kata.” “Basics” and “kata” consist of sequences of movements that are offensive and defensive tactics used in fighting. As students progress, the katas they must master become longer and longer and include ever more sophisticated movements.

Karate is a traditional martial art and, as such, it implies fighting or Kumite. Students training under Sensei McCarroll, however, do not engage in Kumite. Fighting is forbidden and, in the six years that we have had formal Karate instruction at COOK Education Center, there have been no instances in which students studying karate have fought with each other either in or out of the dojo.

We regularly experience students with more senior belts assisting students with more junior belts in acquiring the skills necessary to move up in rank. Assisting others is an important Karate skill as it is an important life skill.

We have a music studio and instruments
Urban Skills Center students have access to the music studio located in COOK Education Center.  We also have quality instruments, including keyboards, guitars, bass guitar, electronic drum kit, various rhythm instruments, microphones, amps, and a Mac computer to assist with playback and composing.  Our music teacher, Mr. McNally, teaches music four periods each day, but the demand for music from our students could have him teaching 24/7.  They love music and the music studio.

From fundamentals to recording original songs
Music basics are taught in a highly positive, non-threatening manner that encourages students to want to develop their skills.  Students acquire rudimentary skill with the instrument of their choosing, they learn the basics of chords, beat, tempo, melody, accompaniment, and so on.  Before long, students are composing and playing in ensembles, playing the music they like, then editing it on Garage Band.  Our students have recorded over forty original songs, songs written by the students in collaboration with one another and performed together. 

Music is social
As Urban Skills Center’s students learn more about music, they also learn how to communicate their ideas more effectively because their compositions will be played by their peers as well as themselves; they learn to act in concert because ensemble music requires extensive cooperation; they learn to encourage one another because the sound of what they produce improves with the quality of everyone’s effort; they learn to take corrections because a piece is rarely “just right” on the first try.  Our students learn very valuable, generalizable social skills because they love music and they love how it is taught to them.

Talent show
Every spring, students from Urban Skills Center and COOK Education Center perform in our Talent Show.  The performance is a big hit with our students and their families.  Dozens of students, teachers, and other staff members participate in the show, providing sets, props, programs, music, sound and lighting support.  It is a total group effort.

Talent Show is a fun time but it is not frivolous.  Students audition for the show to a group of critical teachers and administrators.  Many possible acts are rejected.  Those students who have been chosen have delighted the audience with a grand variety of talents.  A student in the Foundations Program is a talented ventriloquist whose routine includes quick one-liners in exchange with her dummy.  Our Urban Skills Center has a student who is an accomplished juggler, who easily keeps three balls in the air during his act.  We have been treated to several karate demonstrations, some by students who are just beginning their karate training and some, very impressive and high-energy performances by students who have earned their purple and brown belts.  Several of our students sing beautifully and have performed popular songs.  Groups of our music students have played their own original music.  Some students have progressed beyond beginner with their instrument and have performed solo.  We have been treated to guitar solos, piano solos, and drum solos.

Urban Skills Center offers a range of visual art, crafts, and photography classes for interested students. Arts and crafts classes involve a variety of media, including computer graphics, pencil drawing, tempura and watercolor painting, clay sculpture, paper mache, sewing, beading, jewelry making, ornament construction, and so on. Our students have also created the backdrops for school drama performances. Photography classes teach the basics of digital camera use as well as fundamental photo processing on Mac computers, involving iPhoto, or one of the more sophisticated processing applications. Students take their cameras on guided field trips to learn fundamentals of photography. Cartooning has become a popular method of photo alteration.

High school fine arts credit
Urban Skills Center students can follow the school’s high school visual arts curriculum and receive fine arts credits for class participation.

Winning entries
For the past ten years, our students have been impressing judges at the annual San Diego County Fair in Del Mar. Year after year, our creative students have won many “Best in Class” and “Best in Show” awards for their photographs, computer graphics, fine art, jewelry, painting, drawing, woodworking, paper mache. Our students have also earned “Kid’s Best” awards. Winning projects are displayed for a time throughout the school.

Video & movie making
Urban Skills Center students have the opportunity to learn how to use digital video equipment and process their results in iMovie on a Mac. They learn how to bring their creative concept to the screen through story boarding and arranging scenes. They also learn about editing to create the product that suits them.

Yearbook
Urban Skills Center’s Yearbook is a DVD that is produced with the participation of students. Photos and videos are taken of student activities throughout the year and are selected at year’s end for inclusion in the annual Yearbook. Many of the photos are taken by the students, themselves, and the decisions of which to include in the final product are made in conjunction with student input. Finally, the layout, sequencing, and so forth of the final product is also made in conjunction with student participation. Increasingly, Urban Skills Center Yearbooks reveal the growing sophistication of its students in the visual arts.

Every spring, all Urban Skills Center students along with students enrolled in the Secondary Program of COOK Education Center are invited to the Prom.  Most attend.  For us, prom is a semi-formal event involving a theme, like “South of the Border,” in which students can dine, dance, and have a great time with their friends.  Students assist with the decorations.  The “dress up” event means that photo ops abound, and the results inevitably show what a great time everyone had, staff and parents included.

School dances are also held throughout the year, taking place on occasional Friday afternoons to promote socialization, assistance to one another, and just to have fun while cutting loose to music with a good beat.

Halloween
School would not be complete without a Halloween celebration.  The students and staff of Urban Skills Center do it up big and have great fun, even while attending their regular classes.  Secondary students put on a Halloween carnival with fun activities and refreshments for the younger students.  Some groups of students hold a dance and, of course, there is voting for “best costume.”

Urban Skills Center’s educational method for students with disabilities involves a combination of simulated “real-world” experiences that are arranged in school followed by the opportunity to practice the skills taught in those simulations out of school and in the San Diego community. Urban Skills Center students go on field trips to practice their newly acquired skills in community settings. An additional benefit is that they learn more about the world around them.

Trips to learn
Some of our students have goals related to their use of public transportation, so community trips on the bus and trolley are a necessity. Others have goals relating to money management and shopping, so trips to local grocery and department stores are frequent occurrences. Depending on the other skills and information that will benefit our students, we take field trips to local farms, the San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, Torrey Pines State Beach, Sea-World, Soak City, Old Town, Seaport Village, Chula Vista Nature Center, Mission Trails Park, and even Disneyland. We have also gone bowling at the SDSU bowling alley.

Del Mar Fair
Trips to the San Diego County Fair in Del Mar are an annual event, in part because of the diversity of experiences available there and in part because the students have submitted so much of their art work and it is highly pleasurable for them to see their work on display. Urban Skills Center’s students have won many awards for their entries at the Del Mar Fair, so there is also the excitement of learning who won which award.

Senior trip to San Francisco
Seniors who have maintained quality citizenship records are invited to join their peers on a day-long trip to San Francisco, where the students take BART into the city from San Francisco International Airport, ride the famous cable car, tour the Fisherman’s Wharf area, lunch at one of the local restaurants, and sail San Francisco Bay to Alcatraz for an enlightening tour.

Vocational education opportunities
Vocational education at Urban Skills Center provides our students instruction in valuable employability skills both on and off campus. Students learn to work with others, manage materials, complete tasks, check their work, and follow a variety of directions from different supervisors. Off-campus opportunities to practice vocational skills are given at the other TIEE schools and at a variety of community settings.

Community service opportunities
Urban Skills Center is committed to serving the community at large and to providing its students with the skills and opportunities to do so. Nearly all such opportunities involve field trips. Our students have participated in a wide range of community service programs, including ARC of San Diego, Mama’s Kitchen, Lemon Grove Senior Center, Alzheimer’s Center, La Mesa Adult Enrichment Center, and others. COOK Education Center also has an active “Green Recycling Program” that permits our students to learn about recycling and its importance to the environment, and enables them to assist in the recycling effort of the school.

The Honor Society is comprised of Urban Skills Center students and students in COOK Education Center’s Secondary Program who have demonstrated outstanding participation in their classes, have made substantial progress toward meeting their individual goals, and have maintained good citizenship. Specific criteria vary according to individual student needs and abilities. Members of the Honor Society have the privilege of enjoying a special outing once a month. This Honor Society field trip has included visits to Balboa Park, Sea World, and Shelter Island. Honor society has its own, very public bulletin board for displaying the member’s photos, the criteria for becoming a member, and the special privileges that are granted members.

Urban Skills Center has all of the most up to date game machines and a wide variety of game programs that are suitable for young children and adolescents. Guitar Hero is a current favorite. We screen all games to ensure that they are appropriate for our students. For many students, electronic games are highly reinforcing, so we make the availability of gaming contingent on quality behavior and achievement. Brief periods playing the desired game are earned, for example, by finishing independent work at a quality level in math. For other students, games are a terrific way to teach stopping an enjoyable activity when it is time to return to class. Still other students benefit from the gaming environment by cooperating with their peers or by playing against their peers and congratulating them on winning or on playing well. In short, the gaming environment presents enormous opportunities to develop quality social skills.

For some of the students enrolled at Urban Skills Center, games are great leisure activities that they had not previously known how to do. For others, games, television, and just “hanging out,” are too limiting and these students must be taught a variety of skills that might come to occupy them during their leisure time. We offer several leisure classes, some of which have already been described in other sections of this page. Included are activities that range from jewelry making to board games and card games. Whenever we teach leisure skills, we also attend to our students’ development of social skills, including taking turns, displaying good sportsmanship, obeying the rules of the game, and so on. The center of every leisure activity, in other words, is a teaching moment.

Cooking
Life skills classes, like cooking, are enjoyed by our students. They learn kitchen safety, how to use kitchen tools and equipment, the importance of following directions, how to measure ingredients, plan recipes, make a list, and shop for ingredients. Our students prepare the recipes of their choosing twice a week, following the instructions, washing and cutting produce, measuring, mixing, timing, and cleaning up the kitchen. And, of course, eating what they cook!

Kitchen and restaurant jobs are learned in our Kangaroo Café, which prepares delicious meals for invited guests who are served by our students in our al fresco dining area.