Last week I finished my hours in my classroom at Bridgham Middle School. There has been much turmoil at the school because they have found out that this middle school is being converted into an Elementary School. This information, while it obviously effects the teachers, it also effects the students. It seems that the students seem to be focusing on where they are going to end up next year and if they will be with their friends and not so much on how they are performing in the classroom. I think this makes it especially hard for the teachers to try to grab the attention of the room and get them to focus on their work, when the much more important issue (for a 6th grader) of will they end up in the same school as their friends seems to take over. The classroom teacher does a great job in understanding this point while still trying to keep them on track to learning.
With this level of schooling, the basic forms of assessing learning is through quizzes, tests and homework and I think they are the most effective. The teacher tries to keep the kids interested by taking a hands-on approach to teaching; using many in-class labs and getting the kids into groups to do their work. This makes it more interesting than just sitting and listening quietly, which, as we all know, can be challenging for students of all ages to do sometimes. These methods keep the students involved and focused while letting them talk and share ideas with each other. It was my job to walk around the room and help each group and guide them in the correct direction with their work. They sometimes tried to get me to just TELL them the answer, but i knew better and told them all the answers would be in their notes and text book. I would sit down with them and help them find the info and show that with a little effort all the answers are usually right in front of you!
Carmine, you make an excellent point at the beginning of your post about how hard it is for anyone (students or teachers) to focus on anything when you feel as if your "future" is unsettled. In this case, this means for students not knowing where they will be going to school next year. For teachers, this means not knowing if they will have a job next year. It is an excellent point if you think back on the children (and adults) of Kozol's Mott Haven. In their case, we are dealing with generations not knowing what their future is made of, whther they will be able to take care of themselves and their families financially, of their health, of putting food on the table. This maybe explains better why education and school somehow does nto seem like a priority and does not seem to inspire as much confidence in the future as it does for other (more privileged)social groups...
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