Haven't Blogged In Awhile

Hello hello. So I haven't blogged in awhile, because there simply hasn't been much to blog about. Scheduling conflicts have hampered some of my observations at Jones and meetings with Alex and there really is just not that much to report back on at this time.

I do, however, want to report on what my general experience in urban schools has been like:

I've had a few different experiences at this point. Most of my experience has been as an observer in Ms. Verity's 4th, 5th and 6th period classes. One of these classes is an AVID course, which is a college preparatory program, and the others consist of a Freshman World History class and a Senior AP government class. Between these classes their are apparent differences, namely in maturity, and behavior. While the AP seniors are never a problem, the other two classes can get a little distracted. Luckily, Ms. Verity is an excellent teacher and she keeps the distractions to a minimum.

I have also observed another teacher, who will remain nameless. While he is also a veteran teacher, it's clear that he has less control of the class. The one class I observed of his was also a Senior AP course (European History I believe), only these students were aware of the control they had over the direction of the class. When I walked in, they were having a content related discussion in a Socratic format, but that quickly changed to a discussion centered around me and my presence in the class. The teacher's attempts to get the students back on track were, minimal and futile. It was also 7th period and I think that he had retired for the day.

Finally, I also had an opportunity a few years ago to observe at a school in Miami-Dade (Opa Locka, specifically). This was a dramatically different experience than my current one at Jones. For one, the teacher I observed clearly did not know what they were doing. This particular school was one of those that has the revolving door affect and this teacher was new to the profession and my bets are that they did not last. The students walked all over him and his lack of preparation was apparent in his instruction.

These three examples show the difference that the teacher makes in the classroom. Through talking with teachers and professors and observing, I have come to understand how important classroom management is to getting work done. In the above examples, there are three different levels of classroom management taking place and the effects of each are apparent. Also teacher self-efficacy is clearly a variable that adds or takes away from the quality of instruction. While the first two teachers were obviously confident in their abilities to teach, the third teacher was very unsure of himself. The self-efficacy part is no issue for me. I feel confident in my abilities and I doubt that this will be an issue for me. Hopefully this will lend to quality classroom management. I have practically no experience with my own classroom so I really have nothing to go on. I am looking forward to my internship in the Fall to gain this experience.

Update

Things have been going well with Alex. He is putting forth a tremendous amount of effort and I'm glad to say that we are making progress. He is quick to learn. I think that had he been given a fair opportunity to do well in school that he would've excelled.

One thing that I took note of is how important literacy is to learning. So much of our understanding of information is based around how literate we are. Every time we meet, I make it a point to read to him. I try to find things that he has expressed interest in, and the last time, in an attempt to play on his interest in social issues, I read from a book I recently purchased, Howard Zinn's, A Young People's History of the United States. I read to him the first chapter which recounts Columbus's landing in the Caribbean Islands and how the settlers treated the Native Americans. I would stop here and there to reiterate what I had just read, but some of it, I assumed basic enough for him to understand. This was my mistake. It caught me off guard when I realized that he didn't even recognize the name Christopher Columbus. For him, this was new information. Even the myth that many people believe about Columbus was simply absent from his LER. I took the time to go over who Columbus was and briefly went into the history of the colonizing of the Americas. He understood it and even added his own thoughts on the matter. It was encouraging to see that he was genuinely interested in learning this information. Perhaps more importantly though, this was my lesson in assuming.