![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
Post for week of September 17th
I'm not sure what happened last week, but somehow I fell behind with my blogging. This entry is for the week of September 17th. Sorry for the confusion!
I visited my practicum for the first time and started observing immediately. I am working in an English IV inclusion classroom that is co-taught. I wasn't able to talk with my teacher ahead of the observation; however, through e-mails, I had been forewarned that the class was full of "good kids" who were just "a bit rowdy."
In all honesty, I was a little shocked and appalled at what I observed. Perhaps I have always been too idealistic in my image of what goes on in your average, typical high school. The students weren’t bad at all; they were just off-task … the entire hour and a half … and the teachers didn’t even try to reign them back in. Very little learning actually occurred, although I learned a lot about deer hunting and cheerleading and who is crushing on whom through various conversations. The teachers gave all instructions for individual worksheets orally, and the students talked through the instructions. Neither teacher demanded their attention. The activities for the day consisted of completing worksheets/essays individually and quietly at the students’ seats. They talked the entire time, and occasionally the teacher would snap and yell to get them to quiet down and threaten that the more they talked, the more homework they would have to do over the weekend. After the outburst, the students would continue to be off-task and talk, and the teacher did nothing to reinforce her last plea to be quiet and focus on their work. The last ten minutes, students actually began asking questions about the assignment and some began to actually begin to complete it. I was shocked that the EC teacher was feeding the students the wrong information to write the essay about in a desperate attempt to have the student work. Should we be sacrificing content out of exasperation and desperation? Oh, and did I mention that the one student who was physically handicapped was ignored the entire period? I thought that maybe he would be asked to dictate his answers to another student or would be worked with separately, but I don’t think he was even acknowledged except by the other students who would engage with him in private conversations.
It’ll be interesting, and I’m nervous that it will be difficult to teach when there is no visible foundation to this learning environment at this point in time. Perhaps I visited on an off-day? We shall see.
I visited my practicum for the first time and started observing immediately. I am working in an English IV inclusion classroom that is co-taught. I wasn't able to talk with my teacher ahead of the observation; however, through e-mails, I had been forewarned that the class was full of "good kids" who were just "a bit rowdy."
In all honesty, I was a little shocked and appalled at what I observed. Perhaps I have always been too idealistic in my image of what goes on in your average, typical high school. The students weren’t bad at all; they were just off-task … the entire hour and a half … and the teachers didn’t even try to reign them back in. Very little learning actually occurred, although I learned a lot about deer hunting and cheerleading and who is crushing on whom through various conversations. The teachers gave all instructions for individual worksheets orally, and the students talked through the instructions. Neither teacher demanded their attention. The activities for the day consisted of completing worksheets/essays individually and quietly at the students’ seats. They talked the entire time, and occasionally the teacher would snap and yell to get them to quiet down and threaten that the more they talked, the more homework they would have to do over the weekend. After the outburst, the students would continue to be off-task and talk, and the teacher did nothing to reinforce her last plea to be quiet and focus on their work. The last ten minutes, students actually began asking questions about the assignment and some began to actually begin to complete it. I was shocked that the EC teacher was feeding the students the wrong information to write the essay about in a desperate attempt to have the student work. Should we be sacrificing content out of exasperation and desperation? Oh, and did I mention that the one student who was physically handicapped was ignored the entire period? I thought that maybe he would be asked to dictate his answers to another student or would be worked with separately, but I don’t think he was even acknowledged except by the other students who would engage with him in private conversations.
It’ll be interesting, and I’m nervous that it will be difficult to teach when there is no visible foundation to this learning environment at this point in time. Perhaps I visited on an off-day? We shall see.