Blog Post 1- Peri Green

I am doing my field experience at Southside Elementary, in a third grade class in which the teacher teaches math and science. Since the teacher only teaches math and science she has two classes who rotate between her and another teacher, whom teaches Language Arts/Reading. Therefore my observations are of two different classes. In the morning, I observe a class with eleven boys and six girls. In the afternoon, I observe a class with 10 girls and seven boys. Both classes are filled with bilingual students. The teacher knows this, and allows her classroom to be a very culturally relevant one by speaking in both Spanish and English, as well as labeling posters around the classroom in both Spanish and English.

In the morning, the teacher starts the lesson off pretty abruptly. She tells the students to take out a homework assignment and goes straight into answering the questions without asking them how they felt about the homework assignment. The students often fall behind and ask questions like "What number are we on?" because the teacher often starts a lesson without asking if the class has acquired the materials needed. There was one incident where the teacher rushed through the answers for the homework assignment, and only answered 1/2 of the questions on the page and then put the homework assignment up to move onto the next activity. This caused a student to yell out, "I wasted my time doing my homework. You didn't even do it all!" The teacher yelled back at the student saying, "Oh well. It's not like you do your homework anyways! This is the first time."

In the afternoon, the teacher started the lesson off with a pop quiz on the homework from the night before. There are four students in the afternoon class who the teacher says had IEPs. They are put in this class to serve as a Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), and have a special education teacher whom sits in the class with them. Prior to the special education teacher arriving, the teacher asked me to copy down the quiz that she had written on the board on a separate sheet of paper so that the students with special needs could just fill on the blanks. Though there are four students with special needs, she only told me that one has dsylexia and that another has anxiety. All four students received there own special copy of the quiz, so that they wouldn't be required to write as much as the other students, considering that it takes them longer to do the assignments.

The students in the morning class and the students in the afternoon class are split up by academic achievement levels. Although the afternoon class, consists of four special education students, it is still considered the more advanced/gifted class. The distinction between the two classes is also noticeable in the way they behave. The first class misbehaves, and act as if they are unaware of the rules. Whereas the second class is on task, and the teacher spends more time teaching new material and less time fixing behavioral issues. A reason for this may be because the students are aware of their distinctions and act accordingly.

I can relate because ever since 4th grade, I was in a magnet/High Achievers class. In this case, I was in what would be considered the afternoon class. However, I had friends who weren't in magnet and were in the general level classes. They would constantly tell me the distinction between their classes and mine. We had less students in our classes, but they had significantly more. We were more well-behaved than them, and we learned more material. Though, this is not to say students in magnet programs are better than those in general education classes, it is to say that students do understand what's expected of them even at an early age. Being in magnet, we were constantly told by teachers that we were essentially better in every aspect than those in general classes. And we simply lived up to the expectations bestowed upon us, just as the classes I am observing do the same.