Urban Education, post 1

     In the class I observed, I learned that it is important for the teacher to analyze each situation individually and not to make assumptions about students. In this class, there is a student who is relatively new to the class. The teacher explained that it is often difficult to get him to do his work, particularly when he is supposed to copy things from the projector screen. He often shuts down and refuses to work and has missed fun activities as a consequence. I went to the back of the room where the student sits and encouraged him to copy the information onto his page. After a minute of talking to him calmly, he mumbled that he could not see it. I wasn’t sure if this was true or an excuse, but I moved his desk to the front of the room, and then asked him if he could see it better at this closer location. He softly said “yeah” and then began writing the information. I informed the teacher about the situation and she said she would change his desk location and talk to the student’s family.

     This situation showed me that it is important to communicate and listen to the students, because sometimes there may be a reason they act in a certain way. In this situation, the student did not know how to handle his frustration regarding how he could not clearly see the board; thus, he shut down. I discovered that talking to this student calmly encouraged him to state the problem and allowed me to potentially prevent this situation from happening again. This situation reminded me that students in urban schools may come from families where checking for normal eyesight may be overlooked. As a teacher, it is important to notice signs of these disabilities in my students. I would like to know more about ways to catch these kinds of problems early on, so that a student may receive adequate accommodations, as soon as possible. If I were teaching this class, I would ty to analyze the potential cause of a student shutting down, before reprimanding the student by taking away privileges. I was pleased that I was able to help a newer student in the class and I hope this will encourage him to communicate instead of shutting down in future situations.