An Ending Reflection

My field experience has really impacted me on my professional development because it has allowed me to see a different perspective than to the one I had seen back in Texas. Based on my experience at Freedom High School, I can say that there is a lot of things I learned from my cooperating teachers about how to run a classroom and will pass on to my own classroom that are both consistent and inconsistent with the class readings and discussions.

I think some of the most important things I have learned and understood is the importance of building and establishing a teacher-student relationship. At the beginning of the semester, many students in my classes had a bit of a hard time trusting me and letting me help them. As time continued, I started getting to know bits of information about my students and that really helped me tailor their learning and how they learned best. I really got to know my students and what they face and they got to know me, which helped us establish an amazing relationship. Many students came to me about fights or problems and I was able to put their safety first. Classroom discussions and the readings are very consistent with making sure that you create a safe classroom and a good relationship with your students. I have experienced forming relationships with going through school but it’s a different feeling when I’m the teacher.

Another important lesson I have learned in my field experience is the importance of classroom discipline. Adolescents in high school care so much about what their peers think about them and want to avoid being embarrassed in front of them. My cooperating teacher calls out her students in front of everyone, which creates additional problems. This method of discipline is inconsistent with class discussions/readings because it humiliates the student and you’re calling them out in front of everyone. There is different methods to discipline that works like talking to them after class or taking them out of the classroom instead of distracting everybody from their work. This is something that I do not wish to do in my future classroom because instead of building relationships with the students, you are creating a distrust between the student and the teacher.

Another lesson that I have learned in my field experience is learning about the culture of the students and how this affects their language or expressions. I compared myself a lot to my students and how when I was in school I wouldn’t have imaged talking the way they do. There is a big array of words that probably shouldn’t be said in the classroom, but if you were to discipline them they would end up being written up everyday. It really dawned on me that some students don’t know the difference because the way they speak at school is the way they speak at home. There was a disciplinary meeting I was able to attend to where the parent was yelling at the teacher and the advisor and having a really colorful language. It helped me understand that as long as the student isn’t being disrespectful to the teacher or his peers it’s not as big of a deal as it is because it’s embedded into their culture. I do believe that this can somehow be considered consistent with the discussions because of the understanding the culture of students. It might seem like disrespectful but it’s hard to break habits when it’s a big part of their culture.

Another lesson that I learned in school is that teachers need to remove stereotypes about certain students to enhance safety in the classrooms. At Freedom, there is a diversity of students but not a wide diversity of teachers. There was a teacher meeting where I attended and the main issue was about black students not feeling safe on campus. The principle talked about punishing students who brought confederate flags on their clothing, cars, etc. After the meeting, many teachers were talking about bringing their own confederate flags and bringing them to school and wave them around. This circumstance made me feel so sick to my stomach that many teachers still have these stereotypes about students. Understanding culture and eliminating negative bias is some of the main key concepts to understanding the students and making sure they are feeling safe at school. This is consistent with the readings and discussions because knowing your population of students, allows for the classroom to be in order. If a teacher continues to have these preconceived ideas, then the teacher is not being completely fair.

The last important lesson that I learned from my field experience is how to individually tailor lessons for the different kind of learners. This is one of the most important things I have learned being in an inclusion classroom where every student has different needs and different abilities. It’s probably one of the hardest things to do just by yourself, but there is a great need to try and help students learn the material. This is consistent with classroom discussion because we are trying to help students in the best way possible. Really understanding how your students learn, will help students be more active and want to be in your classroom.