Walking through the hallways was confusing to say the least. I still do not quite understand the layout of the building. It is kind of like a big grid, however, then there is a large wing that spans out from one side in an ‘L’ shape and I am not sure how that works with the rest of the building. I did my best to only go up and down one staircase so that I would not get too lost on the first day. The lunchroom was smaller than I would normally predict a middle school lunchroom to be. There were only about ten tables in total in the entire lunchroom that fit about twelve to fifteen students each. Knowing this, it makes sense why they have to split the students into four groups for going to lunch; there is simply not enough room for them all to eat lunch together. In the staircase that I used most frequently, there was a hand-carved sign that read, “Carmody.” It was a really nice and large piece of wood that was varnished beautifully as well. On the second floor, by all of the classrooms, there were lockers in all the hallways. The lockers were painted a royal blue and were half lockers. They seemed to be well kept up with a fresh coat of paint and, from what I saw, the locks looked in good condition as well. (O.C. At my middle and high school, this was not the case. The paint on all the lockers was chipping and the locks were so difficult to turn, it sometimes took two hands. Each year you had to re-figure out your locker and learn its tricks for getting it opened.)
When I went outside to help Ms. A with before school duty, I noticed the large fields around the school. They have two large fields which looked, to me, like they could be used for soccer and football. One of them was surrounded by a gravel track. There are several outdoor basketball courts and lots of grass and trees around the school as well. It was rainy this morning, however, if it had been a nice day, I think that the outside area would have been a wonderful area for students to hang out before and after school. (O.C. I am a very outdoorsy person, so having that space where I could maybe even take the kids to have an outdoor lesson would be something I would look for in a school.)
Ms. A’s room was cold. (O.C. I do not think I ever said this about my middle school classrooms because we had no air conditioning.) When I opened the door to her classroom, there was a waft of cold air each time. Next Thursday I must remember to wear more layers. Ms. A had her tables set up in pods of four. (O.C. I had never seen this type of formation with desks where the chair is attached to it, however, it seemed to work well for her and her students.) She had her desk centered at the front of the room with her projector and document camera sitting right next to her. She had an expo board also available to her to the right of the smart board. On one of the side walls was another expo board that she used to write down her objectives for the day and mini-math assignments. Mini-math assignments are much like a student’s warm-up that gets their mind focused and thinking about math. On this wall and part of her front wall, there were also large posters that had the different ideas the students would be learning during that week. Ms. A explained to me that she made these posters so that at the end of each chapter the students would know what they were supposed to know how to do for the tests. She was going to keep up these posters for the entire chapter and keep adding new ones. (O.C. I think that this is a really unique idea because it helps the students to visualize how much they have learned. They can be proud of themselves as the room fills with posters of items that they know how to do.) On the other side wall, Ms. A had a large bulletin board that was empty as of today. She said that she would eventually be moving the posters of all of the topics they were covering over there, however, she was waiting until she got out another poster. (O.C. This is the only thing in her classroom, physically, that I would change. I would, personally, prefer to have all of my boards at least somewhat set and decorated so that they did not look so empty.) The back wall of the classroom was lined with windows and did not have much wall space, however, there were multiple cabinets lined up in that space between the windows. These were used to store the students’ notebooks and other materials for class.
In the classroom there was also four computers. They were not used at all today, however, I did overhear her speaking with one of her colleagues about how they should introduce the students to the new games that they had on the computers. (O.C. With our changing and developing world, keeping students involved and in touch with technology is extremely important. We, as educators, must help connect computers/the internet to our lessons and introduce them to positive resources that they offer.)
On the walls, Ms. A had several posters. She had a poster of her expectations for all of her classes. It read, “1. Try! 2. Respect other people and their ideas. 3. No talking while others are talking.” (O.C. These are all fairly straightforward ideas, however, it is important to lay them out for the students right from the start and then have them there for them to refer to if need be.) She also had a really funny poster that said “Math Chivalry” and depicted an addition symbol opening the door for a division symbol, a squared symbol, and a set of parenthesis. (O.C. I really enjoyed this poster and I think that having this poster in the class, something that maybe the students do not understand right off the bat, and then being able to show them why it is funny using the knowledge that they learned would be really satisfying for them.)
One thing that I do wish there was more of was more color in the hallways. I remember at my middle and high schools, there were constantly posters on the walls that students made that advertised upcoming events and teachers would often hang classwork up outside the classrooms as well. It is only the second week of school, so this type of stuff may still be coming. There were also no murals that I saw, no art at all hardly, except for the wood carving. Even though the school was nice and it seemed well taken care of and new, I would have liked to see more school spirit in the halls.
After reflecting on what I saw today, there are a couple overall descriptive words that come to mind. First, I think homey. The carpet being in the entire building, including the hallways but not including the cafeteria, made for a really warm sensation even though the air conditioning was cold. It made me feel as though I could take my shoes off and relax. Also, I found that her having handmade the majority of her decorations and posters also contributed to this feeling. It was easy to tell that she cared about her job and the students because she put so much effort into each thing that was on the wall. A school being able to give this feeling to students, I think, is a good thing. The students are able to feel more comfortable there and it makes for a more relaxed and peaceful atmosphere to learn in.
I also thought that her desk/ room arrangement was conducive to how she ran class. Ms. A, throughout the entire day, was constantly telling kids to turn to their partners or share and work with their group on a problem. Having the desks set up in pods made it easy for the students to go back and forth between individual work and group work without having to constantly get up and move their desks in order to work with others. The emphasis in the classes was collaboration and building a sense of community by working together and the desk arrangement helped to strengthen this tie.
When I am at Carmody, I take on a very large observer role. I sit at my own desk a lot and listen to Ms. A much like another student. I also, however, circulate the room often while the students are working in groups or independently. I ask students if they have any questions and the students are beginning to feel more and more comfortable asking me to help them when they need it as well. To the students, I have become much like another teacher or tutor. For Lucas, a student who has an oppositional behavior disorder, this can be detrimental to our relationship. He does not respond well to people of authority and it is going to take a lot more effort from both sides for us to build a relationship of trust and respect.
Carmody Middle School is a rather diverse community. According to Jefferson County Public Schools' website, 60.4% of the students are white, 31.5% are Hispanic, 2.9% are multiracial, 2.4% are Asian, and 1.4% are Black. I personally believe that the more diversity a school has, the better learning experience a student will have. Hopefully, Lucas will be able to use this as an opportunity to learn more about race, culture, and ethnicity.
Here are some pictures of the classroom and posters hanging on Ms. A's wall:
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