Sarah Moustafa

Critical Issues in Education

1/29/13

Paper 1

1. Who Will Read To Me Now? The Changes That Come With A New Sibling
2. How Much Will It Cost? Having A Support System at Home
3. How Much Interest Will I Get? How Neopets.com Taught Me About Money
4. So I’m A Smart Kid? What It Was Like On The Enrichment Track
5. So I Can Only Get It If It’s On Sale? Learning Math While Shopping
6. What’s White Privilege? The Things The Internet Taught Me
7. You Mean I Can Take Whatever I Want? How A Liberal Arts Education Is Affecting My Schooling

***

“Now listen to me and listen carefully.”

It was a warm day in the small town of Cape May, New Jersey. I was leaning over the back of a booth at my father’s restaurant when my father’s best friend and coworker addressed me. Countless similar interactions had prepared me for what was to come next.

“Ok, there are seven people going to dinner. Each person wants two slices of pizza and one soda. Remember that: 2 slices, 1 soda. Now, you can only buy the pizza by the pie, you can only order groups of eight slices. How many slices does each person want?” The man, like an uncle to me, paused in his elaborate setup to make sure I was paying attention.

“Two!” I responded, eager to show that I was focused on the problem at hand.

“Yes. Two. Good. Now, each pie costs 18 dollars and 50 cents. Each soda – everyone got a medium – so each soda cost 2 dollars.”

During a Curriculum and Pedagogy Seminar last semester we were required to teach a lesson in our field placement. I was placed in a first grade classroom at Bayside School with fifty first graders and two teachers. These are my field notes from that experience. 

Lesson Objectives: To teach students how to write a list, why lists are used, and to provide them with prompts to write lists of their own 

Number of students: Four

Four students gather at a table towards the back of the room while the rest of the class is split up into other stations that they will be working at for the next twenty minutes. Behind our table is the computer cluster where stuents are working quietly on reading and math activities. Next to us is a group of three students reading a large poetry picture book outloud to each other. There are not enough teachers for each station to have a supervisor so the computer cluster and the poetry cluster are working independently. On the other side of the room, two separate groups of students (about 6 kids each) work with each of the head teachers on writing and vocabulary. There is another group of four students in the library nook doing independent reading. 

Christine Calderon

01/29/13

Field Post #1

Notes for first visit Friday 25th, 2013:

I was planning on just having a meeting with Ms. Teller but found myself being introduced to the principal along with the 4th grade students I will be working with. The first day at the Madison Elementary[1] was a bit impromptu but the students where very welcoming. I should say that I have been to this placement before my sophomore year for special education in a pull out classroom as well as last semester in an ELL classroom. I enjoyed both times at this elementary school although I was placed here twice I still have yet to be in a regular classroom. I am excited to continue in the same school especially since there are students in this current classroom that where also in special education and ELL this has now given me a better standing point. A lot of the students recognize me as they were filling in the classroom.

6th Visit; 1st grade inclusive classroom; 5 students with autism, all high functioning. Worked directly with two of them today.

Before entering the classroom, I always arrive during recess.I join Mrs. T, talk with her and observe the students.

-

Help Mrs. T plan a lesson; putting words like forest, tree, rivers, sister, brother, mother, kind into categories like "mother nature", "family", "actions" to begin a lesson plan on Native Americans

-Observed Mrs. T read the book "Brother Eagle, Sister Sky" to the students; she had them to a picture tour (looking thorugh at the pictures and sharing their observations)

-Completed an "I Know (K), What I Want to Know (W), & What I Learned (L)" chart.

-

Switched to do sensory wok with Mary; assisted her in using the blue ball and trampoline.

-

Observed Mrs. T do reading activities with Mary

Mrs. T asks "Is your brain ready?" to see if the sensory work was enough for Mary to continue with her academic work. Mrs. T does reading from a large book. Ask Mary to sound out the letter. Points to each one with the end of a pencil.

These notes are from my first day of praxis this semester that took place this morning. This semester I am placed in a 6th grade langauge arts classroom at Spring Charter School.* This is the same classroom that I was placed in last semester for another education course, so half of the students that I worked with today were the same as the students that I worked with last semester. 

I was in classroom from 8AM-1PMand during this time the class engaged in morning meeting, a period of reading, a period of writing, and then the other class came in and repeated the reading period before I left.

Observations:

There were three different teachers that filtered in and out of the classoom. One of these teachers was the main 6th grade language arts teacher. This teacher is responsible for teaching language arts to 5th and 6th graders, using a looping system where they start with the students in 5th grade and then move up with them to 6th grade.

As a member of the rowing team here at Bryn Mawr, we're encouraged to enroll in the PE Rowing Class that an instructor, Harriet, offers at the start of the spring semester. We don't officially start our season until the second week of February (per NCAA rules), so the class is a good way to get in shape for the actual season. While many of my classmates are also my teammates, everyone else in the class is entirely new to rowing, so the first few days are spent learning the rowing stroke on the ergometer. 

These notes are from the second class on Tuesday. In this case, I can't really say I'm learning how to row in the class  - hopefully I know how pretty well after eight straight years of it - but instead I'm learning how to observe the instruction and withhold my own critiques for the other students while still leading my team as the captain. 

7:00am - Class starts

- People milling around in the multi-purpose room

- Harriet takes attendance and instructs Joanna, my co-captain, to run everyone through a 10-minute warmup while she quickly runs to her office

- Joanna tells us to do a 3-2-1 warmup, with increasing pressure. Because she's standing next to me, I correct her and say that the new students have no idea what that means, so she clarifies that it's 3 minutes at an easy pressure, then 2 minutes with more pressure, and a final minute with more. 

Setting: A private, independent second grade elementary classroom in center city

Today was my first day at this new placement. The first day is always an unpredictable one, because I, as well as the teacher and students, are figuring out what role I will have in the classroom during my visits. In past field placements, it has been clear that I will have an observational role only, but in this placement, it seems as if the teacher (referred to as Teacher P) is open to me taking an active role in the classroom--participating in group activities, talking and interacting with the students, helping out with setup for activities.

Once a week I work at an art school in Philadelphia. I monitor a 3hr long Open Studio Figure Drawing class for Adults. Every week there is a model who poses while the students draw.

3rd session of this class

10:05

6 students

male model, looks around room, assessing his options, undresses

(drawing/sketch of model stand with black table/desk sitting on model stand)

The first student that arrived, I asked him his opinion about the high black table/desk on the model stand

I'm struggingl with what my role is in the class. What is my role as a monitor?

I am not the class instructor. When students ask, or talk to me about their art, I am eager to give advice, feedback, encouragement. But I try my best to sit back and not interfere. They signed up for a class with no instructor so I don't try to be an instructor. But its very hard not to teach. I want to teach. I try my best to let them dictate the structure of the class, the poses, the few things that I do have some control over.

Model today asked whether we should keep the black table on the stand, I had already spoken to one student about keeping it as an option/something new, different. I referred the question back to the students. (The table was already on the stand when I arrived that morning.)

10:07 - 10:27    4 5-minute poses

I've attached two sets of field notes.  One attachement is notes I took specifically for this assignment after my Zumba PE class yesterday, and the other attachment is old field notes I have saved from when I was in Special Ed and ELL.