Upon attending Ms. Donahue’s class last week, I quickly found that most of my earlier concerns were put to rest. Ms. Donahue greeted us at her classroom door, and we (Ben and I) quietly went to the back of the class to observe for the rest of the day. However, my observations did not begin only after I entered the classroom. Immediately upon arriving at the school, I began to take note of several things. The first thing that I noticed was the extremely tight security at the entrance to the school. I had to walk through not one, not two, but three sets of doors, two of which were locked, and through the school office in order to even enter the school. This was a very different experience for me, as my high school does not have any locked doors or barriers of any sort. I began to imagine what this level of security (and isolation) meant to the student’s hidden curriculum, as there no doubt is at least a psychological, if not physical impact to such tight security at the place you go to learn. Once in the classroom however, things seemed a little more relaxed. Ms. Donahue is an energetic and passionate teacher, dedicated to the subject that she teaches. She fostered student participation by guiding her class in a group discussion as they sat in a circle, while at the same time having all students participate, with some even acting as scribes at the board. All of this discussion was focused on the class’s upcoming project, in which the students will visit the local middle school, and measure food waste. By fostering an environment in which everyone participates and where each student gets a say in how the project will be carried out, Ms. Donahue helps the students create a project that they are genuinely interested in, and that will help the community as a whole, two of the main ideas behind project based learning. Finally, I did get a feeling of organized chaos within the classroom to a slight extent. Despite this, Ms. Donahue was able to quickly redirect the class and get it back under control. I am excited to continue my visits to Ms. Donahue’s class, and look forward to participating in them more in the future.

On February 13th, I had my first visit to Maury Elementary school with my partner Joe Murray. We sat and observed a 5th grade classroom that is studying immigration. Throughout the class period I jotted down observations of the physical environment and also the relationship between the teacher and students. During my visit I was able to talk to a few of the students and help them with their classwork. This gave me the opportunity to observe closely how some students were more engaged than others. What I noticed about the teacher was how soft spoken she was. It seemed that she focused more on teaching while her teaching assistant walked around and kept some students in line. Later I found out that the teacher assistant can be assigned to students that might have physical or special needs for the classroom. At first I thought the teacher was going to be a pushover because it seemed like she didn’t do anything for the students that spoke out without raising their hand or checked on students who weren’t doing their work. I was quickly proven wrong when I noticed that there seemed to be classroom standards that were well established at the beginning of the year. The students kept their binders neatly in the corner of their desk, at the end of the class when she was giving her closing remarks students who stood up were quickly reprimanded. I am excited to go back and hopefully engage more with the students.