Classroom Ethnography, part the third

I'm sick today, blargh. I've had multiple run-ins with sick people the last few weeks, so it's no surprise. My wife was sick last weekend. Ms. Beale's kids were both sick, one of whom I met. And there were 19 teachers gone on Friday, which meant there had to be something going around.


Oh, yeah, my subbing experience (oh, that sounds dirty). It went great. I taught three classes, 2 sections of AP English 11, and one section of regular English 11. Ms. Beale gave me a very easy day with all three classes, the first two finished up a group writing activity, then started another one. The English 11 class finished up a written paragraph, then did silent reading. I had about three minutes of lecture time total in each class, which is good, because I might not have known what I was talking about.

The students were more energetic and social than they would be for Ms. Beale. I was expecting this, and didn't bother to try to battle them too much. One thing that surprised me is that many students, both AP and regular, were overjoyed when they realized Ms. Beale was gone. "Yes!" they cried. "We have a sub!" Some of them clapped. The clapping sounded ironic, like they were putting on a show for the other students, playing at how overjoyed they were. I discouraged them verbally from cheering, and also said "no clapping." They stopped quite quickly.

Now, if I think about it, I seem to remember students doing this when I was in High School (I never did that. Um, I was a model student.). I can't remember if this was common for every teacher, or if it was only the ones the students didn't like. Will my students rejoice when I call in sick? Another thing that was interesting about this was that it was both the AP and regular classes that reacted this way. I assumed the AP classes would be more reticent in letting a substitute know that they are happy the teacher is gone.

This might be a good example of the classroom community that is established in this room, and the way the students resist it. During normal class time, the students are quiet while Ms. Beale speaks, and they studiously take notes and do their work. They form a line at Ms. Beale's desk when they need questions, and there are very few times when a student is off task, or doing other work.

When I subbed, since I was obviously not a complete authority, the students took liberties with me. Some played with their rubik's cube, some did homework for other classes, some talked with their friends. I circulated the room, and asked questions about the Rubik's cube (I work in a game store, and they've been selling like hot-cakes) and the other homework, and then evaesdropped on some of the social converstaions. I felt like it would have been a constant battle to keep the kids as on task as they would be for Ms. Beale, and so I cut them some slack. This doesn't mean that the entire class was off task, I helped many students with relevant classwork, and made sure that all students accomplished what they needed to in the class period (the AP classes finished the group discussion, and signed up in groups of three for the next assignment, the regular class finished up the paragraph, and did (at least some) silent reading, since they have a large amount of reading due next week.).

One important part of the classroom structure, I think, was the phrase "Ladies and Gentlemen." Both Ms. Beale and the other English 11 teacher use this phrase as a mode of address. It seems to be a very polite attention getter. I noticed, when I used the phrase Ladies and Gentlemen, I seemed to get a more unified and cooperative silence than when I used my preferred mode of address, "Hey, you guys" or "You all" (the American South's crowning acheivement is a gender nuetral second person plural). I found that quite interesting, as they were obviously responding to the phrase, and not to my innate authority. I will probably continue this practice in my student teaching, as it's important to maintain the practices that work best when taking over a classroom as I am.

There are other aspects of authority I wish to extend into my student teaching as well, one of which is the vocabulary which Ms. Beale uses to run her class. In her general English classes, she foscueses on actual rhetorical terms in expository writing, such as claim, evidence and warrant, and ethos, pathos and logos. I don't know if I just took the wrong English classes in High School and college, but this explicit instruction is thrilling and new for me.

On monday, there was one other observation that I found interesting. Ms. Beale had the AP English classes do individual reading conferences, where she would have the student read a piece, and interview him/her on how they understood it. She would also check his/her reading journal. During this time, the other students were working in groups on the assignment I assigned on friday. When the first reading conference was completed, the students automatically became silent (just as silent as when Ms. Beale speakes to them) while the first student related what had happened, and how it went. I found it interesting that the students were very able and willing to collaborate in this fashion.

Later today (after my nap) I'll try to type about the activity systems in place in the classroom.

MadS