When first going into Ms.Dowless’ sixth grade science class, our priority was to focus on the classroom environment. We wanted to see how the learning process worked and connected it to our own experience of middle school. When we first were able to converse and interact with the students, it seemed like they were your normal middle schoolers. It can be easy for instructors to just do their job and teach their lesson plans, but will this be meaningful? Over our years within academia, we have been able to realize the teachers who had a more personable connection seemed to get more of our effort and attention. But in order to develop this personable connection, instructors must understand who they are teaching. Rockbridge county is very different than where we are from: Richmond, VA and Aberdeen, NC.

Well, at least that’s what we thought as we observed the landscape and demographic around us. Before doing research on Rockbridge county, we had an objective view that it was just a rural agricultural area, filled with a majority Caucasian demographic. By seeing a majority of Caucasians, we assumed the county had to be decently well off. After reading data from the U.S. Census and the Virginia Department of Education, we now know there isn’t that big of a difference between where we grew up and Rockbridge. The area including Lexington, Rockbridge, and Buena Vista have a median income significantly lower than the other parts of Virginia. In the city of Lexington, around 17% of the population receives food stamps from the government. Within the school system itself, almost 70% of the students are eligible for free or reduced lunch and almost half are eligible for free or reduced breakfast. We are glad to have discovered this information because if we ever go into the classroom again in the future, there will be a different approach. We would talk to the students and ask about their lives outside of school. We would try and develop a relationship that shows we care if they’re experiencing hardships at home.  This is important to us because realistically students spend more time with teachers than their families. The connection between students and teachers is key, and it starts by teachers understanding where their students come from.

Casey Marchant

ERH-411

21 March 2020

HR: Observation notes and Field Journals. VDOE website (links in works referenced)

Classroom Portrait Draft

The Classroom situation we are in is an Honors 9th Grade English class. The teacher is relatively young. The classroom itself is very laid back with an attempt to bring positivity and encouragement all over the room. Additionally, it is focused during class time but it isn’t extremely strict. The learner portrait is a bit more difficult for me to create as I really didn’t get much of any experience with the students other than a very short activity where the only conversation is on what they were learning and what the activity was. I can say that they are in an honors class so it is safer to assume that there is a little bit more motivation internally. As for what I saw, there was a significant amount of engagement and it did not seem like the students were interested in anything other than what was going on in class. From the start of the class to the time that I left everyone was focused and on the ball with the material that was being covered. Moreover, this is even more impressive as this class is the first one of the day and typically it can take a couple hours for the mind to really get going. All of the students seemed relatively competent in the aspects of what they are learning. Motivated, interested, engaged, and competent is the learner’s profile that we are dealing with. This may have something to do with what the teacher brings to the table Mrs. Holton is young and has had only a few years of experience. She is local both in where she was raised and went to her primary education and where she went to college. Being an alumni of James Madison University her life shows that there is a connection to the Shenandoah valley and Rockbridge county. Additionally, her energy and enthusiasm for her profession shows that she has a serious interest in educating the young people in her class. If she is apathetic about the progress of youth in the community then she hides it well.

Once we take a step back from the specific from the class room and look at the school as a whole we can start putting this environment into context. If you look at the statistics provided by the VDOE the SOL pass rate for Rockbridge high school is not bad. For all students out of the tested subject matters two have a 90+ pass rating, Two have in the 80s pass rate, and the lowest, mathematics, has a 77 percent pass rate.  Breaking these testing scores into sub categories based on race, gender, economic status, and english language ability there are some definite patterns. For example Black students perform higher in two categories but slightly lower in the three others. Economically disadvantaged perform lower in all subjects and hispanics and english learners score well below average. Females score higher. Males and whites score average in all subjects. These statistics are indicators that while this school doesn’t do terribly there are certain groups without a doubt need more attention. Finally, the amount of students that accumulated more than 7 unexcused absences in 2018-2019 in the entirety of the Rockbridge county school system numbered 65. These statistics, however, do not seem to affect time graduation rates or dropout rates terribly. This school is only slightly under the state average for on time graduation.  This number is not terrible, however, it is not great. It sets lower in ranking them other school districts but this is the raw number, meaning that it does account for the size of the districts. Unfortunately, I do not have the tools to calculate or find the ratio but judging from the raw truancy count this is only a minor issue for this school system.

Overall, Rockbridge county school and Rockbridge county highschool is not bad but it also has some issues. My judgement from my point of view is that it is a very average school for Virginia. That being said there is far more information that could be looked at to be more accurate but I simply do not have the time or ability to use it. My classroom, however, was good and certainly can foster some great experiences and set students up for success well especially because it is a 9th grade class and can teach good habits early on.

Word Count: 732

Works Referenced:

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/sol-pass-rates/index.shtml

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/graduation_completion/cohort_reports/index.shtml

http://www.doe.virginia.gov/statistics_reports/school_climate/index.shtml