Blog Post 3

For my blog I am going to focus on the idea from "A Educator's Guide to Teacher Reflection" called re-positioning or re-framing. I have can see this overlapping with my field experience more than once therefore I chose to apply it to my journals. The situation I would like to focus on is a day I went into the classroom and there was a substitute for Mrs. Garcia (not real names). The substitute was handing out busy work so instead I asked the English teacher, Ms. Camacho, if I could observe her instruction instead. I am glad she allowed me to observe her class because I was able to see the different relationships the two classes had with their core teachers Mrs. Garcia and Ms. Camacho.  These two teachers are night and day when it comes to their backgrounds, instruction, classroom routines and especially how they view and handle misbehavior's. Before I go on to explain how each one engages with their students, I will touch on their different back grounds so you can kind of relate to lenses they are using towards their students.
 Mrs. Garcia is around 38 years, she is Cuban, married and has a 10 year old son that attends the school where she teaches. She has been teaching for 14 years and absolutely adores it. Her instruction is very organized and by the book. She even discusses with the class what common core standards they are meeting within each lesson. As a person she is very forgetful and busy and some what unorganized but when it comes to her classroom everything is regulated and in check. She has a tremendous amount of patience with her students. She is not quick to punish them if they are acting out and takes each student a step at a time. In the class she has developed an incredibly positive and effective relationship/dynamic with her students.  She encourages students to ask questions and takes time to answer their questions. She does not make remarks that lower the students self esteem. In fact when I spoke with her one on one I found it incredibly heart warming when she was able to pick out a unique quality about every single student. I am not exaggerating every single one. She is the kind of teacher that sees a student acting out and misbehaving as a learning/teaching opportunity.
Now Ms. Camacho on the other hand, is 27 years old,  Cuban, not yet married, has no kids, and has been teaching for 5 years and adores it as well. Her instruction is very modern and kind of relaxed. While Mrs. Garcia has little routines set up to shift things through out the lesson Mrs. Camacho does not. Her instruction is more as she goes kind of feel. She does not have them journal every day like Ms. Garcia but does have certain current events due every Thursday. Mrs. Camacho also has a section of the class with bean bags and donated books for students to relax and "take a moment". Her instruction will usually tie in with something happening in pop culture. As a person you can see that she is very up to date and passionate. She is quick to punish the students for misbehavior as though their actions are a personal attack. The students in fact have an on going joke that she is one of loudest teachers in the school and that you can hear her from outside when she is yelling. She does not have the same patience as Mrs. Garcia, when students come up to her she somewhat seems irritated by their questions. She kind of jokes around with the students as she was a kid herself.  She raises her voice a lot with them for almost anything. She has sort of labeled some of the students for instance one girl is a "drama queen" while another boy "never stops talking". She also made it very clear to me who she favors in the classroom.
The point of this blog was to show how the teachers interpretation of a behavior triggers a  different response to the behavior and to reflect on how different frameworks can change the class experience. Out of curiosity I asked students who their favorite teacher was and most answered Mrs. Camacho. They described her as more "fun".