Today we visited Beachwood Middle School as our first field experience. I was worried about going to a middle school because I know that at that age, children are starting to figure themselves out and therefore have strong personalities which is almost intimidating, although they are much younger than me. I first started out in a Math Lab classroom with Mrs. Urbanski. At first, I walked around to each child's area to look at the work they were completing on their computers, then I began to answer their questions and help them with math problems. I really enjoyed interacting with the students even though math has always terrified me! One thing that really interested me was seeing a young Chinese student that could hardly speak any English. Mrs. Urbanski communicates with her by speaking English into a translator app onto her phone and giving the student her phone to hear the Chinese version of it. I kept thinking how challenging that must be for the student to be the only one in the classroom that isn't fluent in English and how challenging it must be for the teacher to have to repeat everything she is doing individually to this student. Another instance that stuck out to me during this period was at one point, a girl began insulting her classmates and even hitting her partner once. She immediately asked to leave the room for her "daily walk in the hall" to calm down and instead of the teacher reprimanding her for her actions, she simply told her to keep her hands to herself and allowed her to take a walk. I thought it was really smart to allow this student to a daily walk when ever she gets upset about something in the classroom. I was also very impressed when the student returned to the classroom more collected and quietly finished her work. In the book Educational Foundations, Freire makes a point in the 8th chapter of saying: "the teacher is no longer merely the-one-who-teaches, but one who is himself taught in dialogue with the students, who in turn while being taught also teach," (110). I thought this point applied to the situation I witnessed today because the student needed to learn to calm down and not take her anger out on the student next her but at the same time, the teacher needed to have patience with her and allow her to escape briefly. It is evident that this understanding has been established since the beginning of the school year and will continue to establish all year.
After this class, I visited the 6th grade Honors Science classroom with Mr. Ristau. He explained to us that these children were placed into this class from a placement test in 5th grade and that this class is 3 years of material learned in 2 years. This is because the goal of the Honors Science program is to have students take a High School science class in 8th grade so they can take Advanced Placement science classes by the time they get to their Junior and Senior years of High School. I found this crazy because my middle school never began shaping us for Junior and Senior level classes in 6th grade! The students were very quiet and attentive when their teacher was explaining their upcoming research project about tectonic plates. They then spilt off into groups to begin created a video about the research they discover. I was still in shock at how much individual work was being done and how little the teacher was giving information. Clearly these students are extremely intelligent and independent learners. Through this field experience, I have learned that in the future I will have to work individually with students that may need extra assistance or supervision even if it is not convenient for me. I have also learned that it is crucial to shape children for their futures so they can excel in not only high school and college courses but life in general.
Canestrari, Alan S., and Bruce A. Marlowe. Educational Foundations: An Anthology of Critical Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013. Print.
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