Obeservation #1

            On my first day if observations, I pulled into a front row parking space just before second period.  I glanced down at my note which read “Ms. English, room 305, 9:44am” and took a deep breath before getting out of my car.  I made my way towards three large doors and noticed that the middle one was still open.  I guess that this was a policy for late students, as first period had not ended yet.  As I approached the doorway I noticed two men talking in the lobby.  I carefully ducked around them politely and (since I could sense their confusion and curiosity) asked them how I could get to the main office.  One of the men eagerly greeted me and walked me towards a door.  He held it opened for me and explained that the office was just above this floor.  I thanked him and looked around the ground floor before proceeding to the office.  There were bright posters around the walls one displaying greetings from the faculty and students and another explaining the ideals that HighSchoolName students possess.  I noticed that the atmosphere was dark, not due to lack of lighting, but because of the dark wood paneling that lined the walls.  

            Upstairs, the office was extremely large, way bigger than I imagined it to be.  There was a long counter that separated the visitors and faculty, and I was not sure where to stand.  I started looking for a visitor’s binder, but decided to get the attention of the woman behind the counter instead.  She quickly grabbed the binder for me and explained the procedures of the school.  I left my license with her and in return wore a bright red lanyard that screamed visitor.  I told her the classroom I was going to, but that I didn’t know how to get there.  I was surprised when she walked around to my side and pleasantly walked me to another staircase.  Her directions brought me right to the classroom, but not before the bell rang releasing the students into the hallway.  The hallways busily filled, but not with as many students that I predicted.  Hardly any students looked my way, even though I was clearly an outsider, as they were preoccupied with looking towards the ground and moping to their next class.  My high school hallways had been battlefields full of talking and screaming, kissing and fighting and especially locker doors slamming, and I was surprised to see the opposite at this school.  The hallway was long and dark, and the doors were molded with the same dark wood that trimmed the entire school.  On the side of each doorway was a little brown plaque that displayed the room number.  I could barely make out which rooms matched the tiny white numbers, but managed to find the classroom I was looking for.   

            As I walked into the classroom, I noticed that there were not a lot of students (about 5).  I took a seat a one of the three teacher’s desks on the side of the room and waited to meet Ms. English.  Much after the bell rung, the rest of the small class (9 total) decided to stroll in, as if the bell didn’t apply to them.  The teacher’s desks were very old and creaky, also made of wood.  There were three white boards, two chalk boards, a small built in library shelf, large sticky note lists around the room, and three bulletin boards.  The student desks face towards the white boards and the three teacher’s desks face the side of the student desks.  This set up was strange to me, as I was used to the conventional teacher desk in the front of the room.  There was not a lot of student work around the room, only four (extra-credit) dream catchers hung from the ceiling, and a few typed pages were stapled to one of the bulletin boards.  

            Something that caught my eye was the number of behavioral signs around the room.  Above the white boards hung three signs; “no hats/hoods”, “no phones/ipods”, and “class rules“.  On the other side of the classroom there was another sign titled, “classroom procedures”.  On top of that, behind the teacher’s desk was a list that described detention and warnings.  Strike one was a warning and your name would get written on the board, strike two was a second warning and a checkmark, and strike three was a third warning and another slash.  After three warnings the next disruption would cause the student to have a fifteen minute detention, after another problem there would be a conference with the parents, and another problem would result with a call to Mr. Principal.  It seemed strange to me that there would be so many warnings in a classroom that seemed very concerned with discipline.  

When I finally met Ms. English, I learned that the room was shared by two teachers and that she has a hearing impairment.  This means that she doesn’t hear when people speak too softly, and she is provided with a teacher’s assistant to aid her.  Ms. English spent a lot of time trying to gather papers and sort things out, while the students talked loudly, instead of doing their “do now” assignment.  When the lesson finally started, most of the students seemed to listen, but a few of them were clearly distracted by either friends, phones, or just other things in their world.  Instead of raising their hands, the students would shout out to the teacher, and they seemed sort of engaged.  It seems like the students decide for themselves when they are going to do what they are supposed to.  For example, all of the students completed the “do now”, just not at the time that they were asked.  This is the same for classwork and reading, it seems to be on their own time rather than when the teacher tells them.