Thursday, November 10, 2005

My Worst Nightmare

When things were at their worst here and I asked for help from the administration, the principal suggested that I observe one specific teacher as she is right out of school and has fresh ideas and methods.

At the end of my class period with Group 1A, I told them that I would be coming to their next class to observe and to please not pay any attention to me, to act as if I were a fly on the wall. When I entered, impressively only a couple of them turned to greet me. However, a couple of them kept turning to look at me and without speaking, I signaled for them to refocus on the teacher. One girl stopped only when I harshly asked, “What?”

For almost all of the 50-minute class period, the teacher spoke in a loud, harsh voice and I observed:
- Students rise to throw out trash.
- Students throw paper across the room.
- Students quiet down and take notes when the teacher writes on the board.
- 1:20 (the class began at 12:50) the teacher says the topic for today is “Interviews”
- The teacher continually “shh” and say “ehh ehh” to get their attention.
- Two of my best students playing “Cats in the Cradle”
- Various students playing with the plastic covering the table
- The teacher say something to one student and the whole class started laughing.
- 1:21 ALL students were quiet when the teacher began to speak and they had to write down the information in their notebooks.
- During a moment in between instructions, as the teacher walked around, behind her Richi stood up and threw something at a student across the room, then he sat down.
- Once the teacher began to speak again, the class grew silent. Then they all laughed about something she said. She asked a question and they all call out the answer, which is the letter “u”. With that they start to make noises like gorillas.
- 1:23 It’s quiet again as the teacher begins dictating.
- As the teacher continues dictating, they all begin to speak.
- 1:24 She continues to dictate, they all quiet down and then all start talking again.
- 1:27 It’s silent again as the teacher dictates. In the background I could hear someone on a megaphone selling something.
- 1:28 It’s getting loud, the teacher continues dictating.
- 1:38 The teacher finishes the dictation and directs them to continue working on their own.
- 1:39 The teacher announces that the homework is to watch TV. Students all start speaking. When she announces what they have to watch at a certain hour, flipping between three different channels. They all start calling out, especially that they can’t do it, and other general complaints.
- 1:40 It is silent as the teacher reads the questions to answer while watching the programming.
• What kinds of commercials are prevalent during the programming?
• What type of language is used?
• While the teacher begins the third question, the bell rings for the end of the school day. As she continues, behind her back Richi shoots a rubberband across the room.
• She then reads the last question, which of the programs did you find most interesting? And why?

This really was a painful experience, sitting through a 50-minute class period with horribly behaved students. It was even worse since they had just behaved extremely well in my classroom. At what point do I say that teachers can come and observe my classes? Is it even my place to say anything? Does anyone even want anything to change here?