Observation #1

Mr. McFadden’s class

            Before entering the classroom, I was told it was an LEP, or limited English proficiency, class.  It looked like your average classroom; teacher’s desk at the head, students’ in rows facing the front, a computer in one corner, white board in the front, blackboard on one side, book shelves opposite that, a map of the U.S. with each state shaded a certain hue to indicate which were more or less populous.  This was a Modern World History class for LEP learners.  On the wall at the front, from where Mr. McFadden lectured, were signs all saying the same thing, “Welcome,” each in a different language.  There must have been ten to fifteen of them. 

Atop the bookshelves was a sign that read, “Library.”  I have to say it was a somewhat sorry looking library but I will have to assume that students love reading so much that all of the books are currently on loan.  Every desk did have a copy of the course textbook underneath it which seemed like a nice convenience because it was a doozey of a book and would be a burden for any fourteen-to-eighteen-year-old back.  Mr. McFadden informed me that the students also had a copy they kept at home.

This convenience, he told me, was afforded by the fact Mt. Pleasant High School has been trending toward a less populated student body since he began teaching there twenty years ago.  Student population is somewhere around 900, down from recent years when it was 1300 or so.  The particular class I observed had twelve students, which could have been due either to the decrease in students or that it served a specific minority group in the school, LEP learners.  It is hard to say for certain, but either way it seems these twelve students benefit from the situation as a low student-to-teacher ratio is always desirable and students do not have to lug enormous books around.  Beyond that I will not speculate on implications for the school or community.

Mr. McFadden had the day’s objective written on the white board: I will be able to explain how Stalin ruled the Soviet Union through the use of terror.  He also had a “Do Now” assignment which was simply a page number and question or activity number.  Students trickled in and took their seats and I was so busy looking around and taking notes that I suddenly looked up and there they were.  And then I realized that a flurry of foreign tongue was flying frenetically around me and I remembered the nature of the course.  And prior to this I thought I knew a good deal of Spanish, but this was not Spanish.  Except, come to find out it was, and I am very much out of practice (though, for the record, listening comprehension is the most difficult aspect of learning a language, especially when listening to a native speaker).  It felt good, however, and gave me hope that I might someday have the opportunity to broaden and hone my Spanish skills.

That aside, it seemed as though Mr. McFadden gave the students a long time to complete the Do Now task and that many of them were not attempting it.  Eventually he urged some of them to get started on it and I think, though I could be wrong, that all of them did complete it by the end of the class.  Mr. McFadden introduced me to the class and then had the students introduce themselves one at a time.  They told me their name as well as the country that their parents came from.  Some of them had been here for a very short time; arriving as recently as three weeks ago.  Most of them were from Spanish-speaking countries such as Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and maybe a few others.  One student was from Poland and one was from Laos.  There were four times as many males as females.  Most of them participated, but the students in either back corner did not engage in discussion and one seemingly did no work at all and had a distant, stoic kind of look on his face the entire class.  Two young men in the front, with their desks facing sideways compared to all the others, talked to each other in Spanish virtually the entire class and said very little in English.  I wondered why Mr. McFadden did not separate them but let them sit next to each other even though they were disruptive at times.  He assured me that one of them is actually a very good student and he keeps the other on task. 

I thought Mr. McFadden did an excellent job in delivering the material to the class.  It was mostly just straight lecture and then time to work on questions related to the lecture.  He did, however, achieve a good balance between teaching the lesson, making sure the students understood key terms as well as concepts, and introducing new vocabulary.  Most students were engaged and did their work regardless of their demeanor or behavior, which was varied.  Some were quiet, others not, some asked questions, some did not, but completion of the assignments in the end will tell Mr. McFadden whether or not the objective was met.