Two Very Different Schools

I subbed for two days last week, at two schools that were rather different.

One day was at my favorite college prep school. I was in a kickin' art classroom with a student teacher, meaning that she was on top of things and I pretty much got to observe and lend a hand for the day, which is great. The upper level group was learning how to stretch canvases- a good review for me since I haven't done it in a few years. And the Art I kids were doing a super project. First they had to bring in text messages, voicemail transcriptions, locker notes, emails, or other quick communication. Then they picked one to represent visually. They used a cardboard background that was painted and had mixed media attachments. It's kind of hard to describe, but the projects were totally hilarious. First of all, they were all in text speak, as in "yo grl. how was skul?" Second of all, they were all inside jokes or crazy, confused communication, so the visual representations were really funny. I guess you'll have to take my word for it, but they were great and the students seemed to really enjoy it.

The other day I worked was at a charter high school on the south side. It was a very small school where all the teachers and office staff knew every student's name... impressive. The building was nice and things seemed generally under control, but once I was in the classroom I began to see otherwise. Here too, I was just an observer for the day; the teacher I was supposed to sub for decided to come in. It meant that I spent about 5 hours in the teacher's lounge with NOTHING AT ALL to do except read the Red Eye twice over and feel my brain cells atrophying. But for the other two hours I was "helping teachers" in their classes.

One was a remedial algebra class for 9th graders who had already taken algebra for one semester and failed. I don't know for sure, but most of the class seemed really far behind. At least half of the students are currently failing the class, and only 2 students (out of about 15-18) got A's on the last test. The teacher announced that she would be dropping the students' lowest grade in each category (homework, quiz, test, project) in order to give them a boost. On top of these challenges, the students hardly paid attention throughout the period. Students were throwing things, applying makeup and lotions, yelling across the room, and walking around. The teacher's lesson took 15 minutes longer than she planned because she spent so much time repeatedly saying things like "Deshawn, stop talking." "Kimberly, I told you to put that away." Every single time she said it in a calm and collected manner. And she managed to make some jokes with students, which showed me that she was keeping it together and wasn't too frustrated with the situation (or wasn't showing her frustration anyway). Honestly, the teacher's behavior game me the impression that this was just normal, everyday behavior for the students. And I don't know what to think of it. I was impressed that the teacher stayed so cool; if I had been subbing and this had been my day, I would have considered it to be a disaster. Maybe my standards are too high? Or maybe you just get used to it if you see it every day, all year long. I don't think the teacher's classroom management techniques were ideal; repeating yourself just shows students that they don't have to listen. But she also stayed positive with the students, which is important.

The second class that I assisted in was a business class. They had someone from the charter school corporation co-teaching the class, and he was teaching students to flip houses. Weird, right? It was a pretty interesting project because students used floorplan.com to design and furnish houses, then they competed to flip the houses for the most money in a hypothetical situation. Again, the students performed sub-par. The ones who were actually doing the work designed cool houses, but a lot of the students were completely goofing off and complaining throughout the period. Pretty sad, for an elective course that should be pretty interesting for the students.

What do I think is the best way to handle tough situations like these in the classroom? I have no idea, but I'd like to hear your thoughts, if you have any. Teachers, does this sound like typical behavior in urban schools? What about in charter schools?? How do you deal with these situations? What should our expectations be for students, and how can we help them to achieve more? I've got to admit that once again, I haven't been too impressed by charter schools in Chicago.