Fierce 5

            I knew at the beginning of this semester that I would learn a great deal from this course. I had just received a job offer to work in Washington D.C. with Urban Teachers Center, a program that puts me in a host class for a year, where I learn from a master teacher. During this time, I will take graduate classes in elementary education. By my second year, I will be a teacher and will have my own classroom to run and will finish my graduate degree. This class has prepared me for the realities of an urban classroom in America. Before taking this class, I had only a couple of interactions with public schools, and I did not know the ins and outs of an urban classroom.

For my field vignette, I wrote about a conversation I had with my field placement teacher about a “yes, and” approach for talking about charter schools. The “yes, and” approach challenges “either, or” binaries, and opens us up to the possibility of resolving two seemingly opposing situations, like public “versus” private schools. I’d like my final field paper to consider the question, how is this approach reflected, or not, in the curriculum and pedagogy enacted in my field placement classroom? I’ll be thinking about certain “spectrums” of curriculum and pedagogy that apply to this classroom, such as skill building vs. critical thinking, learning about ancient civilizations vs.

At my school, all the students are able to check out laptops for the school day, which they will use to work on schoolwork for the course of the day. In my classroom one day, students were supposed to be writing scripts for an assignment they were working on. Instead, they were goofing off on their computers, and one girl laid down on her desk, covered her head with her coat, and started talking on the phone.

 My teacher, Ms. Williams, seemed to tired to deal with it. Instead of focusing on individual students who were not working, she only focused on those that were, saying things like “thank you for getting this done, Jonathan!” in a loud voice so as to call attention to it.

While reading the article, I came upon this quote: "Charter schools...were never intended to serve all children."

“This suffocating pressure explains why Washington School changes its character during the months leading up to those exams—why a school where learning is fun turns into a school where fun comes to die.” (Kirp 175)