A Lot to Learn

I have been very blessed in my time as a pre-service teacher to do my field work in what have to be some of the greatest schools ever... or have I? In just two hours on a Thursday morning, I was reminded of what a good school really is. Previously, and now as well in Block II, I have been placed in schools where the students come from well-off families, whose parents work in places like law-firms and doctor's offices (and their not the secretaries... or the janitors). I was impressed when the parents were all at the morning assemblies to take pictures of their kids every day and I was impressed when every student in a kindergarten classroom could read, and some of them were on their first chapter books. I don't want to belittle those kinds of schools at all, but when parental involvement is so strong, it makes things A LOT easier. 

I say all this to say, those schools are tremendous, and the students are brilliant, but they have a lot to learn. Let me explain. I am in two schools this semester, and they are as different from one another as dark is from light. The first school is brand new. I am in a fifth grade classroom and the students use big words that I didn't know until high school. They are amazing. They don't make a peep while the teacher is talking and they say "yes ma'am" and "no sir." My first day blew me away. However, something else that struck me on the first day. This brand new school also has a brand new playground donated by the PTO. It's one of the nicest playgrounds I've ever seen; I know the parents donated thousands of dollars so that their students would have somewhere to have recess when school began, but on the day I was there, the students sat on the sidewalks and played with their iPhones and Nintendo DS instead of the playground. I was almost angry. Mostly because when I was in school, our playground consisted of two seesaws, a few swings, and a basketball court. We played with pine cones and jump ropes. I couldn't help but think that these students, as smart as they are, still have a lot to learn. 

The school I was in on Thursday morning was a completely different story. The students were rambunctious, I didn't see any parents, and in the first grade class I observed, the three kids that were supposed to read to me, couldn't read. In my classroom, there were only four white kids. FOUR! The school was so diverse it was unbelievable. Many of the kids couldn't speak English that well, English is their second language. For the first time in my field experience, I really felt needed. It was so refreshing. I can't help but think that we all have a lot to learn when it comes to determining what makes a great school.