Lauren Madison
March/01/23
1:35-3:10
1. Sequence of Events
Students came into the classroom and set down their things per usual, we had our PowerPoint up that had a specific section detailing that we would not be using Chromebooks in class at all so they needed to be put away. This caused some frustration among them because they always use their Chromebooks, which was an unexpected change. Students sat down and asked if we were going to be the teachers that day and we said we were. This caused an instant shift in the environment with students becoming much more chaotic. We went through the fifth period and had a few bumps overall but for this response, I will be focusing on our sixth period.
2. Elaboration of One or Two Significant Events
In the sixth period, we changed who spoke a bit which meant that I had more time to focus on the classroom management aspect of teaching and less on the speaking aspect. In the sixth hour, I noticed a student who I have previously talked about struggling with sitting in the back of the classroom with his back to us hunched over. I walked over to him and saw him drawing in class so I asked him why he wasn't doing his journal and he said he'd already done the journal. I told him that was impossible because the administration had confiscated his Chromebook for the rest of the school year and we hadn't handed out the packets that had their journals on them. He said Ms. Bleicher told him what it was which Ms. Bleicher said was untrue. I sat with him while he did the journal and as I walked away I saw him pull back out his drawing stuff so I circled back and asked him what he was doing. He told me because he was done he was going to draw so I sat with him. When it was time for Denver to read the excerpt to the class and for us to walk through it instead of group work he was still drawing. I told him that I didn't want to take away his drawing stuff but I would if he didn't work with me and work with the class. He acted as if he wouldn't be drawing but when I walked away he brought back out his things so I told him I'd be taking them away. Once I took his stuff back to Ms. Bleicher's desk, he pulled out his book and began to read so I took his book then he pulled out a marker and began to draw on his packet so I had to take his marker. Denver had provided a fresh bunch of brand new pencils for the class to use if they didn't have a writing utensil so I told the student I could grab him one of those to which he threw a fit and told me he needed the marker to write not a pencil because none of them were sharpened. A student nearby had just asked me if I could sharper their pencil for them so they could listen to Denver speak so I told the student while I was sharpening this pencil for this student I would sharpen one for him so he didn't have to use a marker. He didn't like this but I brought him a newly sharpened pencil. As he still refused to give Denver his attention I sat down with him and talked to him quietly. I asked why he wouldn't do it and he told me he already knew what mass incarceration is and that the packet was too easy. I asked him what mass incarceration is and he just told me a very broad definition that showed me he didn't really understand. I told him "Mr. Hammonds doesn't do this because this is his idea of a killer Wednesday afternoon, he is doing this because he cares about you and your education," the student just stared at me blankly so I just continued, "I know you've read way ahead in the novel but if you're not doing this packet with us you're not going to actually understand any of what Ms. Bleicher is trying to get you to take away from it." The student continued to stare at me and I just asked him to give Mr. Hammons the respect of paying attention for a few minutes before we went into a small group. He did and when it came to small groups I told him he would be in mine then when we got in that small group he volunteered to read the excerpt to the group. He participated with his peers and did well throughout the class with the packet. At one point I looked over and he was messing with some Lego set he had hidden he immediately put it away and didn't pull it out the rest of class.
3. Analysis of Episode
I and this student have a love-hate relationship. I wrote about him previously where he wasn't willing to stop playing games on his Chromebook and the administration is weary of him. At first, I was honestly very nervous about how I went about it, Ms. Bleicher reaffirmed to me that she thought I did great with it, but it was such an odd situation. I thought that this student and I had reached a common ground because previously I'd noticed that he was really obsessed with Poland and drawing. When I asked him about it he told me that he was adopted from there and that he loved drawing. This led to us coming to the conclusion a cool idea for him to explore this side of himself would be writing a graphic novel about what he thinks Poland would be like and how his life might've been. He'd been nothing but nice to me since our first confrontation and I'd noticed a change in his classroom behavior so I thought maybe we'd overcome that hurdle and he was back to being mentally present in the classroom. So it was kind of discouraging that when it came time to teach our lesson was when he decided to revert to the old behavior.