The Outliers

my notes are attached.

Today I went on another school visit with my supervisor. This time we visited a high school that has a Student Success Center, therefore, instead of meeting with a guidance counselor we met with the director of the center. Only a small portion of Philadelphia Public Schools have student success centers, which is determined by the funding that they receive. These centers are involved in many college access programs, mentoring, etc, but they vary between schools.
When I arrived at the school I was first struck by how huge it was. It had several floors, big hallways and big rooms. The murals on the wall made it seem welcoming but the size made me feel small. I wonder what the impact of architecture and space has on students. That is something that I hadn't thought about as thoroughly before, but the difference in size between this school and the last one I visited made it noticeable.

I will post my fieldnotes tomorrow night since I havent had a second visit due to development day in the Philly schools last week. I hope this isn't too inconvenient

Field Notes #3

02/12/13

I've attached my field notes in a word document.  It was easier for me to format/add pictures that way.

Placement

Field Notes #2

February 5, 2013

Last week at the end of my praxis visit, the main classroom teacher and I decided to implement a system of notes to guide my visits to her classroom. This is mainly because she has a meeting for 20 minutes when the students first arrive so there is another teacher in the classroom directing morning meeting. So, when I walked into the classroom today, there was a box labeled “Teacher Ellen” that had several sticky notes inside of it.

The first sticky gave me instructions for the beginning of the day: “please take down the New Years posters on the bulletin board at the back of the classroom and put up the new posters in the box.” The classroom has several bulletin boards, each of which consistently display student work. However, not all student work can be displayed on the board because this teacher teaches the entire 6th grade language arts/social studies classes. Sometimes, the work that is displayed on the boards is chosen randomly (as evidenced by the system I used last week to hang up posters in the hallways, basically put them up until there is no more space). However, sometimes, the student work chosen for display is based on the grade that the students received. Today, that is the case with the student work that I was asked to put up.  All of the work in the pile to hang up had a received a grade of A+, A, or A-.

I've read Freire before in other education classes, though usually in smaller sections at a time.  I generally like theory based readings, but found myself having to relate to the real world to stay focused and really understand what Freire was saying.  I thought about how relevant his discussion of the fear of freedom (page 46), which creates the binary of oppressor and oppressed, is visible in many American movements, which makes his work all the more powerful to me because he wasn't intending to write about America specifically.  This leads me to believe his theories are applicable even outside the US, which is impressive.  On page 44 he writes, "In order for this struggle to have meaning, the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of humanity in both.  This reminds me of the feminist movement.  I think some people fear that women are trying to conquer men, but the reality is that the feminist movement "restores humanity to both" men and women by allowing women to no longer be oppressed (for example, equal pay) and also so that men are no longer forced to be oppressors (for example, men would be allowed to express feelings and emotions more freely).  He also discussed, on page 45, that "in the initial stage of struggle" the oppressed tend to become oppressors, rather than striving for liberation altogether.