MCHS Class Reflection

When Mr. Clark originally taught at Eastside High School, the culture seemed very competitive and full of high standards. The students seemed very eager to learn and at a pretty high level for their age. Twenty years later, the culture flips dramatically. The school quickly goes from pristine to a graffiti-infested playground. The teachers are the prey and the students (mainly the ‘hoodlums’) pretty much do as they please. Education is a small goal for any of the students, and the students that do want to do well fear those “hoodlums.” Mr. Clark identifies this immediately when returning to Eastside High. During his first assembly, Mr. Clark let the entire school know that he was the HNIC. He gathered up all the trouble makers and sent them home, expelling them from school. Most were drug dealers, 5th year students, or drug abusers that were dulling the spark of the other students.

Everyone is likely to experience some form of discrimination or prejudice; as is anyone capable of acting prejudiced towards others. On April 5th, 1968, a teacher in Riceville, Iowa named Jane Elliot conducted an experiment with her third grade class that dealt with the concept of discrimination; and was documented in Peters’ 1985 ‘A Class Divided’. The exercise originally took place the day after Martin Luther King was assassinated. The documentary is an eye opener to the world of racism and discrimination. Bucher (2010) describes racism as “discrimination based on the belief that one race is superior to another” (97). According to Bucher (2010) “discrimination is defined as the

At Hazelwood High School, they do things differently than at my school. At Hazelwood, most of the people worry about themselves and nobody else. Most of the school doesn’t get good grades and the school does not do anything about it. One day in English class Andy walked out when they were reading Macbeth because it was too emotional for Andy to handle. His friends were concerned and told the school counselor. They said, “But… but… it seems like… like… he needs help or somethin’.” Then the counselor said, “Well, I probably shouldn’t tell you boys this, but he is getting some outside counseling… So you boys can relax and be assured that he is getting whatever help he needs”(100). At Harrisburg High School, if someone had an issue like that, the counselors and teachers would be concerned, even if the person was getting outside help. Another thing about education that is different than mine is the school. In Ronda’s English homework, she wrote, “Our school building must have been built about a million years ago, because it was brown and tall and raggedy-looking, but it fit right in with the rest of the day”(16). At my high school, we are very fortunate to have a very new building to learn inside of. At Hazelwood High, they were not fortunate enough to have a new high school be built. Culture and education are very important pieces of people’s

I had my appointment on the previous week at the Writing center. I brought my 2nd project for ENGL 160 class. I scheduled tutor to “face to face”, because I think it is the best way to improve all of my mistakes. Before going to Writing center, I was thinking that this tutor doesn’t help me at all, but fortunately my thoughts was wrong and I enjoyed 1 hour of editing my project.

Also, people started saying that sports teams already pre-ordered new jerseys. With this drama adding to everything else around the community started making everyone go crazy. One of my close friend’s Emily put together a protest before school started that brought together more than 300 kids. We stood outside even though it was a chilly 30 degree morning. When the principals told everyone to go back inside, a group of 100 students started sprinting away from the school and towards the main street, Central Ave. While Emily spent a couple weeks putting together the morning protest, she did not put together what turned into craziness. Kids spent what was suppose to be a normal school day, running the streets of Lancaster. They stopped at the middle school to meet up with other kids who felt so strongly about the situation. Throughout the school day, students were distracted because our school was all other social media and the news about the event that just overturned. Teachers became worried about the students but the students thought it was a hilarious prank to get out of school. Police officers were even distracted from other important events around the town to make sure the safety of students were upheld. During that day, the group of students were getting smaller since people seen it as a good opportunity to leave and just go home. Considering during my school day I have to leave to go to Harkness for Cosmetology, I even had teachers around the school stop my friend and I and question what we were doing since they didn't want anymore people leaving the building, but we had an obvious exception. In a week's time students who were absent from that day were disciplined

There was once a little town called Sparksville just inside the state lines of Wisconsin. It was a small town, unknown to basically everyone who didn’t live in Wisconsin. The people who lived in the town were nice to strangers, for not to many people came through very often, and they also had amazing hospitality. So amazing in fact the hotels would let complete strangers stay for free as long as they spread good news to their friends about the town. There was only one school in town for there were only about 432 residents living in Sparksville at the time, but the school was decently sized for a small town. The students were all grade A students, the teachers rarely often had problems with any of the students as they were raised with generous manners. Since Sparksville was such a small town the school didn’t offer very many sports other than Hockey, Football, and Basketball.

In September of 2013, the new East Bridgewater Junior Senior High School opened it’s doors for the very first time welcoming students from grades 7 - 12. After reorganization of the three schools in the district, it was decided that the seventh and eighth grade would move from the middle school into the new building. Although the building was beautiful and filled with the latest technology, a wave of negative thoughts and expectations about how the school and the school district functions engulfed the staff. A divide slowly but surely formed between the middle school teachers and the the high school teachers, new policies, programs, and technical changes were implemented with few explanations or input, and administration became as distant

Unfortunately South San Francisco High School has a reputation; one so lousy and so widely accepted that it plagues the culture and climate of the institution. Some argue that the community the school is placed in is not supportive. Others claim that the reputation comes from historic difficulties with gang violence in the city, especially with students who participate in gangs. However, this issue is not as significant as before.

This is my midterm exam for IDS 1300 course that I didn't think I would do that great one. I studied the texts; however, when it came down the the exam, I wasn't confident in my writing and ability to connect the ideas. It wasn't difficult to match the passage to the work, but I questioned myself on expanding on the topic. Thus, I began running out of time by the second to last question, and so I began to rush and become sloppy. It seems as though that wasn't the case at all since I scored a perfect score.

I found an issue quite evident at Simmons Pickney. I found an issue with the education system and how the structure of the programs did not allow the majority of students to genuinely express themselves nor did it set them up for success in high school. The environment present at Simmons Pickney was seemingly hostile for the most part when it came to the staff. They were constantly yelling at the students even if they were doing nothing wrong; It seemed that the teachers that were sent to the school were at the lower percentile in their classes in college. One teacher in particular, who was supposed to be teaching chemistry could not even balance a simple molecular equation, one that took the volunteers (who were originally sent to the school to help the students with the construction of their boats and to help connect the students at Simmons Pickney with their maritime community, but were now tutors) who had also attempted the equation and completed in less than a minute. The school seems to be set up to fail, and an administrator had even stated the school might be nearing close due to the lack of funding. This funding comes from the state and is based on grades, and I do not think that putting students, most of which have great potential and are quite sociable and intelligent when allowed to be, in a situation that is set up to fail is anywhere near fair. While I have never really had experience dealing with this type of structural deficiency, it is clearly evident that

All schools have a different environment, whether or not they teach the same principles. That is why it is usually hard for new kids who move to another school, because it is completely different from the school they went to before. Even schools throughout the United States, which are supposed to teach by the same standards and principles, all have their different ways of how the school itself functions. However, the difference between schools is even more drastic when you take into consideration schools from other countries, or times. For example, the schools that students attend are very much different than the schools in England during the Victorian Era. “Hard Times” by Charles

These two past weeks we have been doing a lot of lecture series in class, which I enjoy a lot, I feel like I learn better when having a power point presentation to see, read, and listened to, instead of just talking about something or reading it. This past week we also had our first paper due, our thoughts and beliefs paper which we had time to talk about what we wrote about with a partner. I thought this was a very insightful way to see how other people interpreted the same assignment, and even though we both answered the questions we may have answered them in a different way or a different perspective. So far in class we have gone over some general theories of play, some of which I had already learned about in my developmental psych class, but others that I had not really hear of before. One of the surprising things I learned was about was the Montessori schools. Up until this class I had a negative connotation towards Montessori schools because one of my friends went there for kindergarten through fourth grade and she felt like they didn't properly prepare her for public schooling. She was behind in most of her classes, and didn't feel like she could easily catch up. But after learning that the Montessori schools teach independence to children I realize how she has often acted more mature and independent from people her own age. Although she was not top of her class she was able to catch up and graduate high school with all the kids she started 5th grade public school

The crisis began on the second week of school when a number of teachers were displaced from their assignment at this particular school. This displacement caused a lot of emotional pushback by other teachers, parents and most definitely students. One particular student moved quickly in an attempt to rally the students to support the displaced teachers. Though she was only able to get two other students to participate with her and speak that night at the school board meeting, their bravery stood out to members of the school board as well as administration within the school. The video of their moving speeches has been shared over and over on social media.

The Middlebrook community was unexpectedly exposed to three acts of hatred within our school this fall. Although I will not go into detail regarding students, I will reflect upon how the school handled the situations and my involvement, as I learned a great deal in terms of school climate, student crisis and discipline.

3. My own learning style seems to have an emphasis placed on visual, verbal, reflective, factual, and linear styles.