How is the notion of some students as "bad apples" (from chapter 6 of Whatever It Takes) resonant -- or not -- in your field setting?  Who gets categorized in this way, and by whom? what are the "criteria" for this kind of label, or to put it another way, what are students labeled this way like?  how they treated? If this "bad apples" idea is NOT relevant to your setting, consider why not -- and what that might suggest about what's happening there.  Finally, you could consider these questions on a specific, classroom- or school-based level or more systemically, depending on your site.

Field Notes: March 5th, 2013 

I haven’t really noticed the “bad apple” theme come up in my field placement. However, I think the lack of clear “bad apples” says something about student-teacher relationships at my school and the type of learning environment there, although some might argue that it also is reflective of my school’s highly selective student body. I’m interested in talking about this issue more with others in my group and in class, but my field notes this week touch on a wide variety of issues that came up this week for me. 

"I talk to my student teachers about failure all the time because they don’t need my help with success.  Success is actually a naturally occurring phenomenon.  If something’s not going well, you know it and roll with it.  You need preparation for failure, not success.” (North, 26)

3/6/13 

• How is the notion of some students as "bad apples" (from chapter 6 of Whatever It Takes) resonant -- or not -- in your field setting?  Who gets categorized in this way, and by whom? what are the "criteria" for this kind of label, or to put it another way, what are students labeled this way like? how they treated?
• If this "bad apples" idea is NOT relevant to your setting, consider why not -- and what that might suggest about what's happening there.

This question is very interesting to think about in regards to my field placement. At both the Elementary Schools I am placed at, I am in a small pull-out class with anywhere from 1 to 10 students. These students come from many different backgrounds and cultures, and they also speak different languages. Until receiving this prompt, I never thought about “Bad Apples.” In my classes, each of the students is pretty well behaved. To me, a bad apple is a student who acts out often. He or she is identifiable by the rest of the students and the teacher- all would agree that the student has behavioral problems. At my placement, however, this is not the case.

     Why doesn’t my placement have a bad apple, or even more than one bad apple? Small class size might have something to do with it. Often times, and in my experience, students act out to get attention. In a class that is small and sometimes has more than one teacher (when I’m there), each student gets more attention than they do in their normal classroom.

In thinking about my placement, I feel like I have a very idealistic environment where my teacher doesn’t label her students bad apples and doesn’t necessarily have the pressure of placing her students on specific tracks according to large classroom. Because she only has 8 students in her classroom, she is able to work with them on a more individual basis. Even with this, she sometimes has a hard time getting all of her students to be productive when she needs them to be.  Since it is special education, she also has the privilege of being able to evaluate each student individually, since concepts like the IEP require it.

If she were forced to label her students in some way,  I believe that she would not be able to. She genuinely believes that each of her students is capable of achieving what is put in front of them though their progress is not as accelerated as students in a regular classroom, when progress is made, students are often proud of themselves.  For example, one student, who’s verbal skills are not up to par is always constantly perfecting the way he announces his words. If he does not get it in the first few tries, he will keep trying until he gets it and my teacher will wait, listen and assist until he gets it down.

After having had read Lives of the Boundary Mike Rose and Noa’s Arkby David Schwarzer, I began entering the class feeling enthusiastic and of course full of ideas to experiment with my tutee. My goal from this visit was to further extend Mike Rose’s statement regarding human connection. I wanted to gain trust but equally gain respect from my tutee. I started the session by asking if he had any homework. He responded “yes” accompanied by an unwilling spirit. We started the homework with math problems regarding symbols such as < (less than), > (greater than) and = (equal). It occcured to me that it takes a lot of creativity to form something interesting that can gain my tutee’s interest.   In terms of English, we did a few words that required us to fill in the blanks. One of the vocabulary for today was the word “shade”. At first we tried to illustrate the word through drawing tall trees shading people below them. Later, I tried to illustrate this word through some acting techniques. I was trying my best to create a third space between us while reminding myself not to be oppressive but still gain respect. . It was certainly a tiring day but I learned so much more about my tutee and I was so proud of him when it came to reading time. Last session, my tutee was barely interested to get by two books. Today my tutee told me that he wanted to make his parents proud and he read me 5 books.

Before class, Ms. Presley said “we have a special friend in this class.” Michael's home-life is terrible (she didn't get more detailed then that) and he is new this year. He is the only one in the school not allowed to leave the classroom to use the bathroom, and he has been known to leave and not come back. (I wonder when he uses the bathroom.) He will say he is sick, but he isn't really sick. At the beginning of the year, the faculty tried being really nice to him, but didn't make any progress in his behavior. Now they are trying being really tough on him, and Ms. Presley wanted to give me a heads-up that I might see “tough love.”

During a lot of the class, Michael is being silly but the other students call him out on it, telling him to stop doing something every couple minutes. At one point, a student says to another “stop being the teacher” which is good advice, but Michael does in fact seem to be on a different, lower, level of power than the rest of the class somehow. Eventually he crawls over to the corner of the room. Ms. Presley directs him to come back to the circle with everyone else. He says something like “I'm trying to live an isolated existence from society” using similarly philosophical words. He comes back to the circle for a minute and repeats his dedication to isolation from society to another student.

“That's nice,” the other student says. He crawls away again and is called back.

• An Excerpt from Today's Field Notes: 
• This week I visited Hannah D.’s school, which is for children with autism. We have talked about the unique aspects of her school before, but I was struck by the reality of what she has said. There is an aide for nearly every student that I saw there, and the aides are near them at all times, physically modifying their behavior (pulling their hands away from something they should not be doing), encouraging them to participate in activities, and being there if the student needs help.
  • All of the children there are what people would say “low on the spectrum,” meaning they are low functioning and would be less successful in a typical classroom. I could observe this from their behavior, and could compare it to students I’ve worked with in the past who are “higher on the spectrum”.
• The first place we went to was the reading specialist, Karen (the teachers call one another by first names, the students are mostly nonverbal so do not frequently address the teachers). She was working with one student, John. John was singing to himself as they worked together. The two of them were sitting very close to one another in front of a computer, their legs touching. At times, John would play with Karen’s hands or touch her to get her attention, and Karen allowed this without comment. She was asking him to spell words, starting with “go”. She gave him plenty of time, and often he would sit there for a few seconds and not respond.