Edit: Hi, all! I wrote much more on my contextual factors, so I decided I should re-edit this entry and break my factors up into four different posts. Here's my first part still:
Mill Stream Middle School is located in Northtown, Oregon. Northtown has a population
that is 78.4% White, 12.7% Hispanic, 1.2% Asian, 1.2% Native American, and 4.9% other, and 71.4% of the population is made up of families (US Census Data, 2006), which means that a good proportion of the population is in the schools or interacting with the schools in some way. The community around Mill Stream is full of nice, newer two story houses, and the school has the feeling of a school that is located in a very nice part of town, due to how new everything still looks, and how much technology and books are in the classrooms. This means that I look at my students as having more resources, and so I am perhaps a little less sympathetic toward them than I am my students at my student teaching facility. That being said, I still have tremendous sympathy towards them just because they are middle school students, and I remember how isolated and horrible I felt in middle school, so rest assured that I still feel for them.
Betsy- Your practicum site does seem a lot different that what you've described at your student teaching site. I understand feeling slightly less inclined towards students that seemingly have more resources, but be careful about assuming about their home lives from their SES. Overall, it sounds like a lovely place to teach and with great technological resources. Why do think you respond differently than the students to the amount of books in the room? Do you think it is intimidating for students to have that many books around outside of a library?
ReplyDeleteThanks! - M
Hi guys, I misunderstood how much we were supposed to have done, so this part consists of the community description, the school description, and my classroom description. If it's too hard to comment on the sections, I can break it up and post them all separately.
ReplyDelete