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My placement this semester was in several math classes taught by Mr. M at Westside High School. This school in West Philadelphia is composed of 95% Black students, which for the most part also represented the racial composition of the classes I was in.
I think my autobiography was a "Webby post" so it wouldn't allow me to tag it as a web paper, so I am reuploading it.
Sorry about formatting-- I didn't double space because I thought it was a bit easier to read and see the placement of each point within the cohesive whole when presented like this.
Sarah Friesen-Johnson
May 5, 2015
EDUC 266, P. Cohen
Final Field Paper
Throughout this course, we have read the opinions of many school reformers and learned about many school districts that support providing students in a public school system choice and agency. Superintendents, parents, teachers, and politicians argue that students should be able to choose what courses to take and at what levels, how they will demonstrate what they’ve learned, what they will be evaluated on, and of course, which school they attend. Advocates of choice in a school system often point to charter schools as a solution. While the idea behind charter schools is well-intentioned, there are many ways in which modern charter schools can improve.
Srinidhi Nambirajan
Schools in American Cities
Jody Cohen
5/1/2015
Strategies for Change: A Student Centered and Activism-Based Focus
Over the course of the semester, I have given a lot of thought to the concept of working across barriers within a classroom. In my Issue Analysis, I wrote about white teachers in urban schools, and the problems that engender and are engendered by the racial imbalance in the teaching profession. The topic has been one that I’ve kept in mind through the semester, especially within my field placement, where a young, white, female teacher leads a classroom of students of color. As another young, white female, I enter this classroom with the same barrier separating me and the students, although I also realize that race is not the only factor that can serve to separate in a classroom.
