Middle School Observations
Published on Nov 20, 2015
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
I was with Mr. James for a total of three hours and he did an excellent job of creating a learning friendly environment. He shook all of his students' hands before they were allowed to enter the room and they had to say "Good morning Mr. James."
I feel Mr. James was a great example of a good teacher. He knew his problem students and he knew how to talk to them and work with them. He had one student who didn't stay on track very well, but when Mr. James told him that he didn't expect anything but that, the student started working right away. Later Mr. James explained to me that the student he'd said that too was motivated by fitting in with his peers and so by telling him that he wasn't expected to act the same way as everyone, the student knew he had to work to prove Mr. James wrong.
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Teacher-Student Connections
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I could tell that Mr. James was pretty genuine when interacting with his students. He was talking to them about how he likes to go to their events. He also seemed to really care about his students. He had one student who didn't really talk to anyone. She was quiet and she wouldn't look anyone in the eye. Before she left his classroom he made sure to try to talk to her. He even stopped talking to me to try to engage her in conversation, which impressed me. She didn't say anything though, barely even looked back long enough to acknowledge that Mr. James had even spoken to her.
Most of the teachers I observed with seemed to care, in their own ways. To me, it was just much more obvious with Mr. James. One of the other teachers was even helping her students organize their binders for Binder Check. She went through to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be and even helped the students decide what they needed to keep and what they needed to recycle. Of course, this was for a class with special needs learners, but I was still surprised by her actions.
Student-Student Connections
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It kind of depended on what kind of kids you were with on how they interacted with each other. Mr. James had one hour that mainly consisted of high achieving students and so they were all very well behaved and very courteous to everyone else, myself included. But for one of the other classes I observed with, another class with special needs learners, their attitude was very different. Two students were making threats towards each other and the teacher along with her aid were having problems keeping the two quiet enough to stay on task and to teach the lesson. And while the class was out in the hallway, coming back from the library for opinion polls, one of the girls hit another student pretty hard. Sadly the teacher didn't notice this so I had to point it out to her after the class had left. And in yet another class I observed with, there was another pair of students who kept threatening each other, though they kept their misbehavior out in the hallway for the most part.
School Atmosphere
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I didn’t really feel welcomed by the middle school I observed at. I felt like a burden to the person who was helping me set up my hours. And then a couple of the teachers I observed with really didn’t talk to me. I can understand how they needed to focus more on teaching their classes, and so I didn’t let it really bother. And yet at the same time, because they seemed so closed off to me, I didn’t really get to ask the questions I wanted to ask. Of course, that wasn’t just on the teachers. The school itself seemed very fast paced. I didn’t have time to stay and talk to any of the teachers after classes because I had to rush off to the other classrooms where I would be doing observations, so even though I’m sure most of the teachers would have been happy to talk with me in-between classes, it just didn’t work out that way. Middle school itself felt more impersonal to me than the elementary school did. For all of these reasons, I can’t see myself becoming a middle school teacher, even though there were a couple of awesome teachers at the middle school.
Experience
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