Promt 1 -- Shor

The school I go to is located in a residential area. The buildings and homes surrounding it are old and worn. It is also located close the state house. Next door to the school, there is a large playground with swings and a field for ball games. Upon arrival, the school looks as though it is a small school with only two floors. However, the school is actually relatively big with another floor in the back of the building. When I walked in, the signs near the front doors were in not only English, but Spanish too. This immediately told me many of my students would be Spanish Speaking. As I walked to my assigned classroom, I noticed the walls seemed to be very bare. The doors to each classroom were decorated with the teacher's name and grade they taught.

When I entered my classroom, I noticed the posters hanging up. One was big with the class rules prominently displayed. While I was there, my teacher yelled for most of my visit. This continued for almost all of my visits. It seems that she yells over every little thing. In one instance, she was getting ready to call a group up when one child asked her to sharpen his pencil. She responded by yelling, “I’m not doing that right now! Can’t you see I’m calling groups up? Go do your work!” The child looked frightened and went back to his seat, but later was yelled at because his writing wasn’t dark enough. It seems as if the children and their development aren’t valued, but the teacher’s rules and her superiority are. Everything seems to revolve around her, and her wants. This doesn’t help the children at all. The other posters in the room seemed to be reading or spelling words for different groups. There were also posters with the new math words the students had learned. This told me that reading was definitely going to be valued as well.

I also noticed that the children did not sit in desks, but large tables allowing for group work and collaboration. Even though they did sit rather close together and set up for collaboration, I soon learned my teacher frowned upon this. As I worked with the children, she was constantly yelling at students working together at the tables and computers to stop talking, even if they were using "indoor" voices. This surprised me, because at the computer station and the games station where I was working, it was very difficult to get anything done without talking at least a little bit. These centers required talking because there were only two computers for groups of four, and the games center required reading aloud. I was very surprised that the teacher would frown on any kind of talking or group work, considering the set up of the classroom.

This reminds me of Ira Shor’s arguments. In his article, “Education is Politics,” Shor argues that the key to a students learning is participation in the classroom. In a participatory classroom, authority is not only placed on the teacher, but some of it on the students as well. This helps the students to “see” themselves in the curriculum. The students will actually want to be in school and learn because they feel as if they are valued in their classroom. Shor also states that in classrooms where the teacher is the highest power and students are not encouraged to participate they act as if school is just something to be dealt with. Without including students in what they are going to be taught, they feel bored, frustrated and want to just be done with school.

In my classroom, there is no participatory environment. The students are not encouraged to voice their opinions, but are instead told to sit down, do their papers, and be silent. This is the direct opposite of what Shor proposes teachers should do. My students look miserable in the classroom and I have to wonder if this is the reason why. They do not feel included in what they are being taught. As I look around the classroom, I often see the kids fooling around with others, or just simply not doing their work. When I do leave my classroom, I wonder about how this will influence these children later on in life. They are already being taught (they’re only in first grade) that school is only something to put up with. It is a place where the teacher yells and makes you do boring worksheets. If they are beginning to get this attitude now, how are they going to behave in high school? Will they even have the desire to go to college? These children need to see the value of learning, especially at their age. Their teacher is not helping them do this at all.