I have been to Community school for 3 times. I had great experiences there, I saw a lot in this pre-k classroom. For this class, there are no white student and black student, majority students are Hispanic and others are Asian. This classroom really attracted me because of its multicultural education, nice teachers and polite students. I spent some time observe the whole classroom and I also observed a specific individual. For these three observations, I noticed a male student found who attracted my attention, so I observed him for a specific time during these three observations.
He is a Hispanic student, age around 4. The first thing that he got my attention was he was curious about me. When the first time I went to the classroom, many students seemed “afraid” of me, they did not even able to see me. For this focal student, he walked to me, hugged me and said hello to me. I found him was very polite so I decided to pay more attention to him. After that, I found out this student is a little different than I thought.
I found this student a little “aggressive” or “violent”. Maybe the word violent is too strong for a 4 years student. Aggression can be found once he was chasing other students in the classroom, he pushed the other student very hard and on purpose, that made that student’s head hit the wall. Another incident would be once, I did not know why, this students start attack other two students by throwing large pieces of puzzles on their face. At first, those two students fought back but stopped after a minute, this focal student was continually throwing on their face until the teacher came to ask him to stop. I have seen a few other similar activities which related to this student. According to Oakes (2018), Oakes quoted Psychologist G. Stanley Hall’s Theories that “In his view, the unstable and corrupting environments in city neighborhoods pressed individuals toward depravity-especially vulnerable were children and adolescents.” (pp. 62). One I heard from the assistant teacher that she asked this student to stop doing a improper behavior by “threating” him to tell his dad about his misbehavior. He seemed panic and looked like he is afraid of his dad. I wonder maybe the family impact this student of being aggressive. I will ask teachers about this dad issue next time to figure out what kind of family that this student born and raised.
Another point about this student is he barely participated in class activities. For this pre-k class, there are multiple activities like reading some words, listening to teachers about a story and some math related fun activities etc. This student seems did not want to involve any of them. I had a short conversation with the leading teacher, Mrs. Smythe, She told me this student had some cognitive issues. That was the only thing I heard because this teacher was in a hurry, I would like to ask her more on this “cognitive issues” on next time to find out why he did not want to participate in class activities.
A fun fact is I found out this student really likes to stay with the assistant teacher. On my last observation, he stayed with assistant teacher all time. I feel like this student was “obsessed” with the TA. There are a few reasons that I can observe. First would be they are both Hispanic. As I mentioned before, this TA is a Hispanic, sometimes she could conduct bi-lingual education by speaking Spanish to other Hispanic students. I think this would be one of reasons that this student found close to this assistant teacher. According to Oakes (2018), “It’s not just who teachers are, but how they teach that matters for student learning.” (pp.25). I think Oakes’ experience greatly applies to this student. What I do not understand is the only difference of those two teachers is race, and as I see, the leading teacher Mrs. Smythe is more professional and have more experiences about pre-k experiences. So I would also want to figure out why this students is so “obsessed” with this teacher. I would like to hear the opinion from both the leading teacher and the assistant teacher.
My observation can only made me know what I saw and I can analyze after the observation. However, I really need information about this student from both teachers. With the information, I can well analyze and research this student.
Reference
Oakes, Jeannie, et al. Teaching to Change the World, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.tc.idm.oclc.org/lib/teacherscollege-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5257693.