Field Post/ Cleveland heights

Going to Cleveland Heights was a very interesting experience for me being that it was very different than my high school. The class I observed in was Mrs.Brown's 9th grade English class. The kids were very loud and crazy. The first thing that I realized was that the classroom was very messy and Mrs.Brown's desk had not been organized in days. In my opinion, as a teacher or student I would not be able to concentrate with a lot of distracting, misplaced objects around me. Despite the messiness, there were a lot of colored posters up on the walls which helped. The desks were arranged in separate pods of three or four desks so kids were able to work together. I personally liked this set up because it gives every student a "support system" or people to collaborate and share ideas with. The lesson of the day was that students were analyzing a summarized text of the original copy of a story, along with the original copy. Previously in class they had read the simplified one and were looking for the details they missed in the original one. There was a lot of confusion between the students of what they were expected of and what they were suppose to do with each piece. If I were teaching the same lesson I would of got up in front of the class and explained to them first what they were doing instead of telling each individual group to do after they started working. It was very obvious that Mrs.Brown did not have control over her students. Many of them were on their phones or just sitting there doing nothing. Others were highlighting paragraphs at a time because they did not understand the point of highlighting as a whole, or what specifically they were looking for.

One thing that I really appreciated was that she was very concerned about vocabulary. They had a list of words that they would work on each week up on the board that they were expected to know. She kept telling them to do whatever they had to do if they did not understand a term such as looking it up, circling it, or asking her. Overall, I think it was a very opening view to the discipline that teachers may have to partake within high school. I have learned from being in this class that students may also need a lot of encouragement and motivation to do their work. They need a teacher that will make them want to jump out of their chairs in order to learn.