Field Notes 3/5/13

Field Notes: March 5th, 2013 

I haven’t really noticed the “bad apple” theme come up in my field placement. However, I think the lack of clear “bad apples” says something about student-teacher relationships at my school and the type of learning environment there, although some might argue that it also is reflective of my school’s highly selective student body. I’m interested in talking about this issue more with others in my group and in class, but my field notes this week touch on a wide variety of issues that came up this week for me. 

Today in Ms. R’s class the project is to create some type of visual or auditory representation that compared the Great Depression and the Great Recession and the responses of the FDR and the Obama administrations. Again, this is an independent work period, so Ms. R doesn’t say anything to the class and just lets them begin working in pairs. Their assignment is on Moodle. In terms of presentation style, the only rule is that they could not use the programs they use often such as Prezi, Keynote, etc. Ms. R provides them with a variety of programs and websites to choose from. I walk around and talk students about their different presentations. They projects include: infographics, online magazines, interactive websites, podcasts, movies, comic strips, news broadcasts, videos, and more. Some students show me examples of past projects they’ve done for other classes that involved technology. Tina e-mails me the link to a website she made for her Spanish class that she was particularly proud of so I can look at it more at home.

As I become more comfortable with my role in the classroom, I’m noticing how much the students appreciate me showing interest in their work. Because project-based learning allows for the work to be so individualized, they are truly proud of it when it is complete and they want to show it off. I also realize it makes the students more comfortable around me and gives me a chance to get to know them. For example, I learn which students are more artistic, which ones are tech-savvy, or which ones are personable. I also realize how deeply these types of projects require the students to engage with the material they are learning, because they actually have to think about how to teach it or present it to an audience.

While the students are for the most part working on their projects, there are, as usual distractions. Students will try to talk to me about topics unrelated to the project or show me YouTube videos. At one point four students are singing and dancing loudly at the front of the room. Again, Ms. R doesn’t intervene or encourage them to focus.

In Schools in American Cities we are reading “Holler If You Hear Me” and I can’t help but think about Michie’s description of not being afraid to lose control of your students, because that is where the real learning happens. I wonder if it is necessary to allow for this type of “loss of control” in order to let them have those moments of learning. Where do you draw the line in terms of classroom management? When does it become distracting to other students?

Because I did my cross-visit with a college access program, I decide to stay after Ms. R’s class for an SAT prep class to get a sense of the college programs at my school. The SAT teacher, Ms. A comes in, passes out folders with SAT prep materials, yells at me for having my computer out, and then almost writes on the smart board before students tell her that she can’t do that. She looks around 65 and is white. Before I can explain that I am not a student, she goes straight into explaining the basics of the SATS (average scores, 3 levels of question difficulty, etc). And then she goes through practice problems. For an hour we sit and she talks. I hear phrases such as,  “circle that,” “stop,” and “you guys are blind, we gotta get an eye doctor in here. That line is clearly longer than this one.” I hear one student whisper to his friend, “This is so stupid.”

I normally would not be this critical in my field notes but if I am being completely honest I sat in that class thinking, “This is the most painful hour of my life.” That was obviously an exaggeration, but going immediately from a space of critical thinking, creativity, interaction among students, participation, to a space of traditional, non-creative, “boot-camp” type training was jarring. Everything about the class feels wrong: the teaching style, the content, the interaction between the teacher and the students, the lack of participation, even the physical placement of the teacher in the classroom. Because teachers typically do not stand at the front of classes, the only white board is small and awkwardly placed in the corner of the room, so Ms. A couldn’t really see everyone as she was speaking and writing notes.

At one point, something so subtle and shocking happened, I wasn’t even sure I heard it correctly and hesitated putting it in my field notes. But I am sure that this happened, I think I just couldn’t believe it and didn’t even know how to process it. When going over a logic question, Ms. A was explaining why one answer wasn’t correct: “’All men in the Johnson family are over 6 feet tall.’ Well that’s not right. Just because the brother and the father are over 6 feet tall, that doesn’t mean they all are. They could have a cousin, or a brother, or a I don’t know…a slave.”

I feel as though I cannot even comment on this clearly because there are just so many things going on here. It’s completely absurd that this teacher would even use an example like that so subtly even if it was meant to be a joke in some strange way. I was honestly just stunned. I wasn’t sure if I should tell the college counselor or Ms. R or someone. I was shocked. I’m still pretty shocked, confused, upset, and angry. I don’t really know what else to say. Students were already not paying attention and this teacher was not engaging them so I only saw a few students just laugh in response clearly acknowledging how ridiculous this comment was. Most really didn’t even notice she said that.

In Mr. T’s class, the students are beginning their poetry unit. He begins by passing around a handout with two poems. He has the students read them out loud. Then, he has colored pencils on each desk and has the students mark up the poems by color (red where you notice repetition, blue where you notice metaphors, etc.). They’re also allowed to add one category on their own of a pattern they notice. They make comments and underline individually, and then share their thoughts as a class.

This activity, while more structured than Ms. R’s class, still allows students to explore their own ideas and discover things for themselves. While it’s often clear that Mr. T thinks certain interpretations of the poem are more realistic than others, he is always very supportive of all comments made in class, which creates an environment where it seems as though everyone feels comfortable participating. Additionally, simply using colored pencils gives students who are more visual learners an easier time organizing their thoughts.

For the second half of the class, Mr. T has the students draw a timeline in their journals, marking 0 years to 12 years. He tells them to write 3 memories from that time span, then pick one and write everything they can remember about it for 5 minutes. He gives prompts to students that need a little push such as “What did you feel? What did you see? How old were you?” Then he has them begin their homework assignment, which is to write a poem based around that memory. He told them that the only rule is that their poem cannot rhyme (to which all the students let out a groan), and they have to describe what poetic strategies they used.

Again, this is a great way to make the curriculum relevant to the students’ lives, a strategy described by Gregory Michie. Something else I notice about the setup of this classroom that facilitates the type of student-teacher relationship and learning style that goes is that the teachers don’t have desks at the front of classes. They have little tables in the corner of rooms where they can keep papers and things, but usually they keep their computers at a central table where students are also sitting, but they are also standing and walking around the classroom. They can give individualized attention to each student but also in many ways feel like a part of the class.