Final Field Paper

Sarah Friesen-Johnson

May 5, 2015

EDUC 266, P. Cohen

Final Field Paper

 

I am placed at Underhill Elementary in a sixth grade classroom. My site teacher is Mrs. P. She is the epitome of a warm demander and, to many students, is an extremely effective teacher. However, for other students, she is not as effective. There are two students the show these opposing experiences. One student, Angel, benefits from Mrs. P’s teaching and has a strong relationship with her. Elias, on the other hand, is often treated unfairly or overly disciplined by Mrs. P. This contrast is important in examining the subconscious prejudices or habits a teacher can form that affect students in ways that she may not be aware of.

During my time in Mrs. P’s classroom, I closely observed a boy named Elias. He sat at the back of the class, presumably placed there by Mrs. P. His seat faced away from the front of the classroom so that he was angled toward the right wall. In order to see the lesson or what was taking place at the front of the room, he had to turn sideways in his chair. His desk was situated so that it was directly next to Mrs. P’s desk. Mrs. P told me on my first day at the site that she believed Elias had ADHD. She was not allowed to say this to his parents due to restrictions, but felt strongly that he needed assistance with school and should therefore have an IEP. Unfortunately, his guardians which include an Aunt and a Grandmother have not set one up for him despite some pressure from school staff in the past as well as Mrs. P. Mrs. P has said that his Grandmother either refuses to come to meetings or cannot make it.

According to Mrs. P, Elias’ Grandmother has a tendency to use corporal punishment. Mrs. P is afraid to contact Elias’ Grandmother about any of his misbehavior because of an incident she witnessed earlier in the year. Apparently, Mrs. P had called in Elias’ Grandmother after Elias had been disobedient to Mrs. P. As soon as his Grandmother arrived, without waiting to hear what he was in trouble for began “beating on him” in front of Mrs. P. After that, Mrs. P has called Elias’ Aunt when he gets into trouble, though I’m not sure this will help him avoid punishment from his Grandmother since it seems they all live together.

Mrs. P appears to have a somewhat strong relationship with Elias. She often teases him and makes him laugh sometimes. He approaches her with questions and does not seem to be afraid or worried around her. Mrs. P told me once that she has a hard time liking Elias sometimes, but that she does love him. Mrs. P’s has a difficult time with Elias in the classroom. The first day I was at the site, I observed Elias’ lack of focus. During math he did not pay attention to the lesson and failed to copy the formulas from the board or complete his worksheet as he was instructed to do. In reading, he put his book over his face and moaned, staying that way for a long period of time. The same day, on the way to lunch, he pushed another student onto the ice. When the other student complained Elias said, “Snitches get stitches.” Every time I have been in the classroom, Elias has exhibited impulsive and hyperactive behavior. He frequently jumps out of his seat, kicks the legs of his chair and yells across the classroom without permission to speak. He can be very disruptive while Mrs. P is teaching. Therefore, I empathize with Mrs. P’s feeling that, though she loves Elias, she can’t always like him because he is a constant source of stress for her.

Since Elias can be hard to deal with, Mrs. P often resorts to strategies for behavior management that she doesn’t use for other students in the class. There have been several examples of this. One day, the class was playing a quiz game. Many of the students got overexcited and began acting up. Half way through, Elias and another student got into a mild verbal altercation. Mrs. P removed them from the game. Both were very upset to miss out and looked ashamed. Later, two students at the front of the classroom got into a similar, but slightly escalated altercation and began giving each other the middle finger. To me, this seemed much more aggressive than the behavior Elias had exhibited. But, the two students at the front did not removed from the game. They only got a directive from Mrs. P to stop.

Another day, the class was acting up and everyone was yelling. Someone made a comment that Mrs. P didn’t like. She thought it had been Elias. I didn’t hear the comment and didn’t hear where it came from. Mrs. P immediately called Elias’ Aunt as a disciplinary measure. Elias was very upset by this and the first thing he said when he was on the phone with her was, “It wasn’t me.” He sounded very sincere and upset. I believed him. He began to cry after he got off the phone with his Aunt. After that, he seemed to behave better the rest of the day. Before he left for home he asked Mrs. P, “I did good today, didn’t I, Mrs. P?” Mrs. P shook her head. Elias asked, “I did bad?” Mrs. P nodded in response. Other than the first incident that morning, I hadn’t seen Elias act out all day. He wasn’t doing his work, but he didn’t jump up and move around like he usually did or disturb the other students.

There were more incidents as well. At one point, I observed Mrs. P grab Elias’ wrist after he had jumped to touch the ceiling. He dragged him toward the front of the class and held him there. He stood with one hand in his pocket, staring at the floor as everyone looked toward the two of them. Mrs. P had been physical with Elias in the past as well. There was one time when he was acting out and Mrs. P took hold of the back of his shirt and pulled him across the room to his desk.

One of the most telling interactions between Mrs. P and Elias occurred on my last day at the site. Elias and another student got into an argument. Mrs. P didn’t see what started the fight. I know this because she was talking to me at the time and she had her back to the students. But, as soon as the fight came to her attention Mrs. P moved toward Elias desk and said, with a raised voice, “You touched her desk. You started it by touching her desk. You started it.” She was very close to Elias. Their faces were only inches apart. Elias said quietly, “I didn’t touch the desk.” When Mrs. P moved away Elias murmured, “Teachers always blame me.” Then, he began to cry. Mrs. P said moments later, “I’m not talking to you. You don’t say anything. You’re done.” Elias put his head in his hands and continued to cry. Since I’ve been there, Elias has cried almost every day. Each time he does, it follows a confrontation with Mrs. P.

Mrs. P is aware that some of her behavior toward Elias might be unfair or damaging. One day, she told me a story about an old student that had approached Mrs. P to tell her about how Mrs. P had changed her life with a single comment, which had motivated her to succeed. Instead of boosting her ego, however, Mrs. P told me this old student had only made her worry about the major influence she has on her students. She told me how she regretted telling Elias earlier that day that he would never get a job if he didn’t do his work. She worried he would internalize that comment negatively just as Mrs. P’s old student had internalized a comment positively. She began to cry as she told me this story and emphasized that, “If a teacher has the power to change a student’s life for the better, surely they have the power to change it for the worst.” This story made me realize that she is aware of the effect she may have on Elias, but she simply doesn’t know of a better way to discipline him. She has told me many times that she wishes she could get support to become a better teacher, but that those support aren’t available to her. He behavior toward Elias does not come from a negative place. She genuinely cares for him and wants him to succeed. Her treatment of him may be a manifestation of her concern for his future. She may feel she has to be strict with him to help him when he moves forward in school. Mrs. P has expressed serious concern for him for next year. She says that she has considered failing him this year because she wants to keep him in her class because she doesn’t think he is prepared to go into middle school.

My interactions with Elias have been limited. He doesn’t often approach me and I believe he sees me as an authority figure. At the beginning of my time there, I worked with him on a poem. The students were supposed to use prefixes in their poems about any topic they wanted to write about. Elias chose to write about basketball. He told me that he didn’t need to learn much in school because he was going to become a famous basketball player. He got excited about the words he was using as prefixes, but didn’t know what their true definitions were. He assumed that synonyms were definitions and therefore his work was confused and unclear. But, he had been so excited about the subject and about writing his poem, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that he’d made many errors. I corrected some, but much of it I left as it was. Working with him made me sympathetic to Mrs. P’s frustration with him. He is clearly very bright and has a lot of energy, but it was very hard to focus him to help him understand the actual content of his work. He struggles quite a bit academically, which may lead to some of his misbehavior and to Mrs. P’s need to discipline him constantly.

I believe I have absorbed some of how Mrs. P feels about Elias. That much became clear to me in the following incident in which I assumed the worst from him. I was working with another student at Mrs. P’s desk. Elias was sitting beside us, looking at us. We didn’t have enough space to work and I was writing on my lap. Elias reached over and pulled out a drawer. I thought he was trying to disturb us and I snapped at him. “Hey, what do you think you’re doing.” I said. He looked taken aback and stopped pulling out the drawer. The other student then started pulling out the drawer and it became clear that it was a collapsible writing surface. Elias had just been trying to help. I apologized and felt deeply ashamed. It became obvious to me in that moment why Elias struggles so much. At least in part, it is because teachers or authority figures assume the worst from him. He’s been labeled as the troublemaker and suffers the repercussions of that label.

There is another student in the class. Her name is Angel. Throughout my observations, I have realized that, in contrast to Elias, she is Mrs. P’s favorite. Unlike with Elias, Mrs. P assumes that Angel can do no wrong. One particular incident illustrates this. Angel was playing with some of the other girls. The playing got out of hand and Angel ended up hitting another girl, saying it was just a play hit. The principal happened to be in the room at the time. She took Angel aside and told her, “There is no hitting at my school,” in a stern voice. Angel was ashamed. When the principal left, Mrs. P exchanged a conspiratorial smile with Angel, as if to say, “It’s ok. I’m not upset with you even though you got into trouble.” I can’t help but feel that, if Elias had been in this situation, Mrs. P would have intervened immediately and offered up some form of punishment. Angel, though, recieved a smile rather than discipline.

Mrs. P told me on my first day that Angel was, “One of the smart ones.” I’ve worked with Angel and felt this was an accurate assessment. It was on the same assignment I had worked on with Elias that I initially noticed this. Angel also chose to write about basketball, but that was the only commonality she shared with Elias. She needed very little guidance from me when completing the project. There was genuine excitement about her poem and it ended up being very well written with nice descriptive language and a good flow. She was easy to work with and enjoyable to work with as well. From working with her, I became aware of why Mrs. P liked her so much. I couldn’t help but like Angel too.

Mrs. P’s feelings toward Angel were also apparent when Mrs. P encouraged Angel to show me a business plan she’d been working on. Mrs. P let her come sit with me in the back of the room to talk about it while the rest of the class was working on their worksheets. Angel wanted to create a clothing line with the phrase “Haters Gonna Hate” written on all of the products. She had an extensive list of prices she was anticipating as well as multiple ideas for products and designs for the logo. It was impressive for a sixth grader to have completed such a self motivated project. Angel was not the only person who had contributed to the project and her partners in the classroom all came up at various times through our conversation to add things. Each time, Mrs. P sent them away, insisting that it was Angel’s project and no one else’s. This situation displayed not only Mrs. P’s pride in Angel, it also showed her protectiveness and her willingness to put Angel’s needs before those of other students in the class.

Mrs. P has also showed her favoritism in other ways. One example is Mrs. P’s visit to Angel’s home. Angel had a week in which she didn’t turn in her homework. Mrs. P was very concerned. As she said, “She’s an honor student. She should be getting 100s.” Over that weekend, Mrs. P went to Angel’s house to check up on her. She was worried that there was something going on at home that was affecting Angel’s school work. With Elias, Mrs. P only calls his Aunt. It shows how much she cares about Angel’s success that she went to her home instead of only calling her. It also is an example of how she perceives Angel’s misbehavior. With Elias, she contributes the misbehavior, presumably, to him. With Angel, she assumes that there must be more to her misbehavior. This may be due to the infrequency of Angel’s misbehavior, however.

Either way, Mrs. P’s treatment of Angel contrasts quite a bit with her treatment of Elias. In both cases, the students have been labeled. Angel, however, is labeled as the top student whereas Elias is labeled as the trouble maker. This label and the use of it, at least subconsciously, in Mrs. P’s classroom, has major implications for both students. The effects of it are particularly severe for Elias. It is clear from his comment, “Teachers always blame me” that he has experienced such treatment before. He may therefore be less likely to trust teachers in the future and see them as the enemy rather than benefitting from their teaching. In addition, he may be more likely to feel unfairly treated. From my experience in the classroom, I feel that Elias is often unfairly treated and he usually withdraws after being treated this way. This causes him to miss a significant amount of material from class and hurts his relationship with Mrs. P. At some point, if he doesn’t already, he may internalize the way he is treated and see himself as the troublemaker, which will hurt his self esteem.

Additionally, Mrs. P’s treatment of his may result in his peers ostracizing him. At one point, for example, Elias wanted to join in on a game. Mrs. P asked the class who wanted Elias. No one spoke. When she assigned him to a group, someone from that group booed him. In contrast, Angel is very popular and is frequently used as an example of good behavior for the class. Whenever there is free time, Angel is immediately surrounded by friends. Mrs. P’s treatment of Elias especially relative to her treatment of Angel, therefore, not only affects Elias’ self esteem and his academic success, it affects the way others react to him as well. This was also apparent in my own response to his helpfulness.

With all this negative feedback, this engaging, charming, bright boy may not ever get to realize his own potential and may fall into a spiral of failure. Perhaps once he moves out of this grade, things will change. He could find a teacher that has more positive feelings toward him or Mrs. P could try to remedy her errors and build up Elias’ self esteem instead. Despite Mrs. P’s harsh treatment, she is not entirely to blame. It would be helpful if she was instructed in ways to handle students who present difficulty in the classroom. It would also be helpful if she was informed of her prejudices, or came to realize them on her own. It is not because she does not care for Elias that she treats him this way. It is because she has formed a habit in her relationship to him and does not know how to work effectively with a student such as Elias. Similarly, she has developed habits in her treatment of Angel the only difference being that she knows how to work with a student like Angel and help her succeed. There is still hope for Elias’ future and I believe that once he finds the right environment, he will be able to succeed as much as Angel has. But, the case of Angel and Elias is a good one to illustrate the need for teachers to be aware of their prejudices and classroom presence in terms of how it affects students.