Field Blog 2

            I recently did an observation at Cleveland Heights High School with Mrs. Hansen. Going into the class I posed the question of what would be the difference in the atmosphere of a middle school gym class and a high school gym class. I found high school to be a much harder age group to teach. Before doing any observation I had the idea that the older the kids got the harder it would be to reach them, so far I have found this to be true. The kids in Mrs. Hansen class were very disrespectful. I contribute some of this due to the area the school was in and how the kids are brought up but mostly I contribute it to them being teenage high school students.

When I first walked in I was left standing there with the students for about ten minutes before the teachers even came into the gym. Right as the teacher starting taking attendance one of the girls shouted out, “What the fuck”. The teacher immediately went over to the student and pulled her aside and discussed the situation. No real discipline was put into action though. I feel this gives the students the impression that it is ok to use that language because they will not have to face the consequences of their actions. I also understand that the teacher needs to allow the students to express themselves freely in a classroom but I do not feel this was an appropriate time for this language. The language from the students continued as the class went on. As Mrs. Hansen was giving directions for the day two of the male students were lying down and chatting with each other. When Mrs. Hansen asked them to sit up they refused and kept talking. She then told the students to go sit on the side with the students who were not participating for the day. As the group of students were on the side they started to make comments about their teacher how she is a dyke and racist because she is a white and most of the students are black. The entire time the class was completely out of control. The kids were not participating in the activity.

One of the biggest problems that Mrs. Hansen said she had was with the students being on their cell phones. She said that there was no policy about using phones in class but I asked the principle about this after my observation. She said they do have a no phone rule during class but it isn’t strictly implied because she finds the students are able to use their phones for educational purposes. Most of the students in the gym class either had their phones in their hands or in their pockets and weren’t able to properly do the activity because they were hanging on to their phones. Mrs. Hansen says she tries not to spend too much time of class reprimanding kids for using the phones because if she did she would never be able to do any teaching. I feel the administration should crack down on the students using their phones because from what I saw it took away from the educational learning rather than enhancing it.

Over all my experience at Cleveland Heights High School was very eye opening. This was an atmosphere I was not familiar with. There kids there had different demographics then those in my high school and the classes were conducted in a much different matter. It showed me that not every school as going to be easy breeze and sometimes teachers are thrown into more difficult situations.