Blog Post #4

The last time I spoke in class about my field experience, I mentioned how my clinical teacher will often switch from english to Spanish when she is teaching. Although I understand that there are some ELL students within the classroom, she does not clarify in only english. I mentioned how there are mostly hispanic students who seem to understand completely what she is saying, but there was one girl who did not seem to fully understand what was being said when she switched to Spanish. I have personally questioned the relationship between the teacher and this student since the first day that I came to observe here. The student I am referring to is an African American girl, who's body language and facial expression tell that she doesn't understand when the teacher speaks Spanish, we will call this student Linda. Linda is the only Black student in the classroom, and because of the recent events in the media, I decided to pay close attention to how the teacher reacted to Linda. I was hoping and praying that she was treated like all the other students were. I first noticed something off when the teacher was at her desk, surrounded by a few students who had questions about the work, all of the students asked their questions and got back normal answers, but once Linda asked her question, the teacher snapped a little bit and told everyone to go back to their seat and stop asking questions. I have no idea of the questions being asked, and I do not know if it was possibly the same one being asked over and over, or if Linda frequently asks the teacher too many questions and the teacher became annoyed, but I am just writing about what I observed. The other thing that I noticed about Linda is that she is always sitting in the back group of tables alone. I decided to ask about this once and the teacher assured me that other students were assigned to sit there with her, but they were absent. It seemed that these students were absent just about every time I observed. There was even a time when my clinical teacher asked the students to group up and check each other's papers, and there was no direction to help Linda who sat alone, so I asked a student from a different table if they would switch with her and they did. I am not sure if there is prejudices in my clinical teacher's heart, but a lot of the actions I had observed had me thinking otherwise.
-Samantha Beverly