School Context Assignment

School Context Assignment

Veterans Memorial Elementary School is the largest elementary school in the center of the smallest, poorest community in Rhode Island. As I approach the school I am struck by a feeling of being “crowded in.” Parking is difficult in this small city. The streets are lined with old tenement houses, many of which are in need of repair. Veterans School appears to be a huge building built on a small lot. The playground seems inadequate in size; however it is attractive and well cared for. I learned that the parents and teachers worked together to raise funds and then built it together. 89% of the children who attend this school are eligible for free or reduced lunch. Because of the overwhelming poverty in Central Falls, the district decided to offer universal free lunch and free breakfast daily. As I enter the school I am greeted by freshly painted purple walls in the corridors. The students at Veterans are predominantly Hispanic (74%) combined with an African American population (15%) and White population (11%). During my time at Veterans I have not met any teachers who were Hispanic or African American. I have however, seen some teacher assistants from these populations.
My time at this school has been divided between two classrooms: first and fifth grade ESL classes. This school had an unusually high numbers of students that receive special education services: 21% with an additional 23% of the students receiving English as a Second Language services. Surprisingly enough, this school did not meet their improvement requirements under the “No Child Left Behind” testing and has been placed into corrective action by the state. They do not yet know what the consequences of this will be.
I enter the first grade classroom, I see two posters talking about peace are displayed. I later learn they are the result of a violent spree in Central Falls two months ago that hit this school hard. There were two murders: one victim has a brother in the third grade and the sibling of an accused shooter in the second murder also attends the school. The words on the posters, written by the children, with their own illustrations and spellings were striking: “If you have a problimm tolk about it – don’t hert your frends.” His quote relates to Johnson, when Johnson talks about "We can't talk about it, if we can't use the words." Johnson talks about, "you can't deal with a problem if you don't name it, once you name it, you can think, talk, and write about it. You can make sense of it by seeing how it;s connected to other things that explain it and point towards solutions." On the other side of the door leading into the classroom is a profile of the class student of the month: “May Student of the Month: Anthony is 6 years old. He lives with his mom, dad, big brother Steven, and hermanito Matthew. Green is his favorite color. Pizza is his favorite food. He is an expert at toy cars. He wants to be a race car driver.”
Desks are clustered together into teams. There is no teacher desk, only a messy counter where she puts her things. Later I learn that these are groups of children with different abilities. The students on the team work together to earn tallies for helping each other, completing tasks, and doing good things. The team that gets the most tallies gets to eat lunch with the teacher in the classroom once a week. They get their lunch in the cafeteria and then eat with the teacher. She says this rewards the team for their positive behaviors and helps the classroom run effectively. It also helps her to learn more about each student. The behavior system in this classroom is built on Responsive Classroom (http://www.responsiveclassroom.org/) Each day they begin with a “meeting and greeting,” which sets the tone for the day. Students, the teacher, and any visitors are invited by the leader (which rotates weekly) to gather in a circle. The leader gets to choose how the greeting will be passed around the circle. One day the students greeted each other with the “Red Sox greeting.” Each person receives the greeting then passes it on to the next person. The class then does some calendar things and reads a letter from the teacher on the easel. It is nice to see the little children lead all of this with the teacher.
A lot of the children’s work is hanging on the walls. There is a door full of pictures with magnets. It has the pictures of all the kids in the class as well as all of their teachers. The class rules are hanging up. They have been written by the students. I notice there are only three rules and they are all positive: 1. We are all learners. 2. We take care of ourselves, our friends, and our materials. 3. If we make a mistake, we fix it.
On this particular day, after the message, the teacher showed the students a picture of a soldier. She told them that it was the janitor’s son and that he was in Iraq. He had called his mother yesterday during lunch in the cafeteria and the janitor asked if the students would make cards for him. This was their writing lesson for the day. After introducing the lesson, one child from each team passed out papers. The children were encouraged to use their little word books or the words hanging up on the word wall to help them. Most of all they were encouraged to say the word they wanted to write slowly, and then write the sounds that they hear. They had little alphabet cards with pictures to help them do this. The teacher said it wasn’t important at this time that they spelled every word correctly because it is more important for them to connect sounds to letter. As they finished their letters, they came to me for help stapling it onto construction paper that they could decorate. I noticed some of the students were sent back with some ideas and encouraged to write more. Other students had less writing but it took them longer and they needed a lot of help. In this classroom of 16, five children have special needs.
Later the students were called up, a few at a time to read with the teacher. She read different books with each group. Some students read alone and others read together while they waited for a turn to be called for reading group. This class doesn’t have a lot of papers to do. During literacy time the students know they all have to be reading or writing. The white board has pictures of things that the students can do during this time. They include doing a reading program on the computer, work with magnetic letter to make words, and listening to books on tapes. During this time I am surprised to see some children laying on the floor, some children sitting at desks, some on the computer, some working alone and some working together. They all seem happy and involved in learning. Later I learn that they spend the first month of school learning how to do these activities. She believes that it is important for them to have choices about learning and to be actively involved rather than sitting quietly and doing papers.