Day Two, School Two

In this school there wasn’t a lot of presentation, there was a short and sweet introduction to the school, information on its being one of the largest in the district housing children from Pre-K through 8th grade; overall pretty standard information, just as my school years. The school’s surroundings were more typical of the idea of where urban schools are located, near a highway and taller buildings.
This is the school where I had the longest amount of time where I visited classrooms, and spoke to teachers at greater length. Though there was a brief itinerary, visiting three classrooms, we toured almost the entire facility, dropped in on several classes at random, from language arts, to technology, to science, to a contained classroom. Teachers shared with us ideas of what worked in their classrooms, of different types of approaches with different types of students. We also went into a Read 180 classroom where students where using the computer to assist them with their English assignments. As a future English teacher, this really caught my attention as I learned the benefits of such a program and what could be done with the right resources and the right attitude.
I was impressed with all the schools and happy to see the environment in all of them. I liked the openness of the teachers, and the interest of the students in whatever class we went into; this I credit teachers for, making the subject interesting, making it matter to them and captivating their attentions. With all we have learned about the difficulties in urban education, and setting aside all the myths and assumptions, these schools were great examples of what can be accomplished in any school.