Signature Assignment: Student Observation Project

By Mike C.

TED 505, Dr. J. Sapp. Instructor

I was a long term substitute teacher in the class of my focus student for a period of four weeks, where I was responsible for taking attendance, and designing lesson plans for the math class, which I teach him, along with twenty two others. So my knowledge of the student is near complete, since I had the pleasure to see him, in and out on a daily basis for over four weeks.The name of the student who I observed in this project is "Doug", not the student's real name. This student is African American in heritage, race or ethnicity. He speaks English, and no other language, to the best of my recollection. He lives in a nearby Housing project adjacent the charter school which he attends. There are about two hundred, or so other students in his school. The Housing project in question was specifically designed for low income families, where he lives with his family of three children - two boys, and a girl, him being the oldest - a mother, and a father who, in his opinion, visits occasionally. Doug is in the eighth grade, and is fourteen years old, his mother has two jobs, all of which are low paying. Doug is slightly chubby.

School

Doug's school site is one of the myriads of charter schools that dot the south central Los Angeles landscape. The school is housed in what used to be a commercial building, along with another charter school. The charter school which Doug attendshas three set of classes, sixth, seventh, and eighth. There are three sets of each of the three different grade levels. The school adheres to the Common Core curriculum. Over sixty percent of this school's teaching staff - as at the time I was there - teach all the students in rotation. The rest of the other classrooms do not have steady teachers. The school relies on a steady stream of substitute teachers to man the remainder of the classes. Such overdependence on substitutes may not augur well for the school, or its reputation, especially in view of my experience there, which adds up to having nothing to write home about.

And being a substitute teacher, I am not in a position to assess the quality of the school's overall teaching staff, as to whether or not the teachers are credentialed. I can state rather affirmatively that the school is not properly managed.

Classroom

The classroom where I came to know Doug as a student, along with his other classmates, is arranged three or four students to a table. This eighth grade class is extremely noisy, so is the seventh grade class that abuts it. I was reliably informed that the regular teacher quit on the students due to that teacher's inability to cope with the noise, and the deliberate disruptiveness in this mostly Black/Latino charter school. After about two weeks in this enervating and energy-sapping classroom, I was not in the least surprised that the teacher next door- who informed me of the quitting of the regular teacher in Doug's class - himself quit on his seventh grade students. For me in particular, the sheer discomfort of staying in that classroom for as long as I did was compounded by the unrelenting heat that serenaded us, the students and I, during the beginning of the about - to - end fall semester, where and when, all of a sudden, the air conditioning system broke down, and where call for repairs fell on deaf ears. However, in this amalgam of classroom craziness, I saw something really remarkable about Doug. He is one of the hand full of students who are noticeably quiet. The three students whom he shares a table with are just part of the ravaging pack of disruptiveness in the classroom. In my observation of Doug, both inside and outside of class, I notice that he is somewhat sociable, likes to mingle with other students, does not joke with his lunch, but somewhat reticent and shy, for the most part. He is very conscious of his weight, which I think some of his classmates uses to poke fun at him. This reduces his agility at times when the need for physical prowess comes into vogue., for example there was a few times when he and his other classmates would be running late to be in another class. In order to avoid being marked tardy, the Dean of Students would normally stay at a corner of the school and belch his usual "Time Up" via a mega phone. Students would run as fast as they could but, Doug would lag behind. I get the feeling that Doug does not like the fact that students, and others who may witness such scenes would stare at him, and chuckle.

Back to the classroom affairs. Doug does display an attitude of trying to fit into the crowd. But he does not know how to do that. From what I see about him, Doug would be a remarkably studious and diligent student if the learning environment where he is currently was a totally different one. I see that he has a bent for being studious, his only distraction are the students whom he sees daily. This points to the fact that economic, socially - induced factors, as opposed to any other, are the only limiting circumstances that militate against Doug's education. On several occasions, I would manage to talk the students into working independently, Doug would be the only one who would do that very effectively, and with positive results. Doug will benefit tremendously in a classroom, where academic decorum reigns, and where independent work is the highlight of the teacher's modulus operandi.

As far as group work goes, Doug cannot do much to change the minds and opinions of people around him.He is not as garrulous as most of his other classmates, especially the three whom he shares the table with. His seeming quiet and rather detached persona, in my opinion, makes him incapable of swaying the thoughts and minds of other students in, and around him. It appears that he is pre disposed to such demeanor, or way of behaving.

Fitting Theories

Given this brief sketch of Doug, especially along the lines of wanting to fit in, I believe the theory that would be at play for Doug's portrait is Bandura's Social Cognitive type, which states that one could learn by the observation of others. Since Doug is incapable of changing others in his class, the probability is high that if that setting persists, this student would be forced to imitate and learn what his classmates do, a lot of talking and deliberate disruptiveness. He would be advised to believe that there is nothing wrong with being different.

Being the highly independent student that I consider Doug to be, and this student's knack to work diligently on problems assigned to him and his classmates, another theory that would fit his person is that of Gardener's multiple intelligence theory. In this theory, Doug would be strong in the area of logical-mathematical, and would also fit very well into the shell of intrapersonal, as opposed to interpersonal aspect of multiple intelligence, since he enjoys solitude more than his gregarious and highly energetic classmates.

The third theory that would be accommodating to Doug's present stage of student hood or development is the Erikson's theory of psychosocial theory of development. Being the early teen that he is, Doug fits right in the identity versus role confusion stage, where peer pressure - call it peer relationships - shows, from my reading of him, as the dominant trait in his life right now. This confusion stage is further strengthened by the role which the uncomfortableness of his obese nature brings to his relationship among his peers. If Doug remains steadfast, and is able to handle his penchant for eating, and receives proper counseling about his weight, I believe he would be in for a bright and stress- free future.

In sum, Doug is simply a blooming teenager. He is not noticeably different from the average Black teenage student in other America's big cities, where normal lifestyles are often plagued by insufficiency of resources in his school, and where peer pressure as well as fractured family life, with economic hardship in the bitter mix, continue to dominate and distort dreams. Doug would be best served by being counseled and given a clear direction to dream big and follow the dream. Doug is particularly lucky in the sense that he is receptive to classroom instruction even though he is doused, especially at this current stage of his, by uncomfortable and disagreeable academic circumstances in his various classrooms settings. As a matter of fact if his mother would devote some more time or extra time to talk to her son, Doug, that would make up for a lot of other deficiencies that are really needed to make Doug become somebody to be reckoned with in the overall quilt of the American society.