Since 1989, Extrahelp has provided students of all ages with an unconventional opportunity to call into a live TV show and ask questions regarding their homework in various subjects.
With the potential cancellation of the show last year, Boston Neighborhood Network (BNN-TV) “rescued the program” as a Comcast production to continue helping students, said Jerry Howland, Extrahelp teacher.
K-12 students can phone in with their questions in Math, Language Arts, and Reading every Tuesday from 5 to 9 p.m. and receive detailed answers from the staff of five on-air teachers who have all worked in Boston Public Schools.
Extrahelp began in the Campbell Resource Center in Dorchester, airing three days a week and four hours day in 12 subjects that also included history, science, and foreign languages, said current producer and director Arlen Showstack. It later moved to Cablevision in Brookline then to a studio in Cambridge.
Howland, who has been an Extrahelp teacher since day one, said a producer called him in summer of 1989 to be a host for a new high school math show. He initially turned down the offer since he said he did not want to be on television.
“At the end of the summer, she called back and asked if I would do the show for one month so that they could find a permanent host,” he said. “I agreed and the one month has turned into twenty-three years.”
Currently teaching at Another Course to College, a pilot high school in Brighton, Howland hosts the high school math segment, but said students from all levels call including some from colleges. He has been a teacher and administrator in BPS for the past 42 years.
“It is great to be able to help young people in Boston who have no one at home to help them with their math,” he said. “The quality of the questions we receive has improved over the years, particularly at the middle school level in Boston.”
Throughout its 23 years on air, Extrahelp has had several producers from Lisa McNulty in 1989 to Showstack, who has been with the show for about 10 years and started as a contractor. Extrahelp has provided help to not only students from K-12, but also to college students from the Boston area, parents, and adults.
Showstack said the five teachers have all worked on Extrahelp for at least a decade and have numerous years of experience in the Boston Public School system.
“When I was kid sometimes, you’d feel weird asking questions and you didn’t know how to get help,” he said. “The teachers are wonderful people who really care and wouldn’t be here for this long if they didn’t care.”
Crystal Haynes, a 14-year English and Language Arts on-air teacher, teaches that hour every other Tuesday. For the past five years, she mentors first year teachers in BPS and is currently at Young Achievers and Orchard Gardens.
“I try to encourage a love of words and for all of us to become better readers, writers, speakers, and listeners. In the past few years, fewer and fewer students call with homework questions,” Haynes said. “It doesn’t matter if they don’t have Language Arts homework, I still want to hear from them and learn what they have done to improve their literacy.”
Robert Bonanno, who has been on Extrahelp since 1990, is a K-12 math teacher, helping the student to understand the homework problem in a “helpful, friendly way.”
“I have been grateful to be part of a terrific crew to get the show out every week,” he said. “I have worked as a Boston Public School teacher starting in 1973 and now I am retired from the classroom but my career continued with Extra Help,” Bonanno said.
Showstack said that students have the opportunity to also be guests on the show. They will be trying to work out Skype calls for the future, so the teacher and student can both be on air, as well as emailing questions.
“It is a great show for kids to get live help since went you go online, you can’t really ask specific things,” he said. “It is definitely impactful to get callers who call back over the course of time, and there is nothing more gratifying when child says thanks ‘I get it’.”
With the exception of February 14 and 21, Extrahelp will be on BNN’s News and Information channel [Comcast 9 | RCN 15].
