An Interview with a Sixth Grade Student
Bringing up the topic of conducting a case study to my cooperating teacher was a surprising experience. I remember asking my teacher to recommend a “difficult” student that would provide an interesting interview. My teacher quickly responded, “Why do your professors always want a difficult student? Sometimes good students provide the most interesting interviews.” I thought about his response and the next day asked him if I could interview Antonio, a student who had intrigued me from the first day I entered Dunn Middle School. Antonio caught my attention because based on his appearance and demeanor in class, one would assume Antonio was a poor student who could not care less about what was being learned in the classroom. However, once a lesson began or a worksheet was distributed, Antonio transformed into a focused and enthralled student. During my lectures I had to avoid calling on him because he knew the answers right away and loved giving correct answers. I wanted to know how a student who was so quiet and indifferent during homeroom could become an ideal student when class began. Antonio might not be considered a “difficult” student, but he is definitely an interesting case and I learned a lot from him during the interview.
Based on looks alone, Antonio is an average student in my classroom. He is of average height with a slightly slim build. I have never seen him wear anything other than jeans and tee shirts. Antonio is Hispanic, but I have not heard him speak Spanish in class as other students frequently do. He is also especially quiet in social situations, such as homeroom or free time. From my observations before our interview, I honestly believed Ant...
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...ed me that students who may exhibit troubling behaviors in homeroom or other social situations sometimes become model students when classroom time starts. My final question for Antonio was the stereotypical “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. Antonio thought for a second and then said, “A doctor or a lawyer.” His answer delighted me, Antonio is essentially dealing with a double life, but he still has big dreams. Even though he has to make lingual changes on a daily basis and sees his friends not taking their education seriously, Antonio has a goal, an impressive goal at that. All in all, Antonio showed me that there are students who can fight the setbacks in their life and work hard to do well in school. I do not think there exists a “hopeless case” and I feel that every student can work hard to at least perform satisfactory work with the help of teachers.
During my first few weeks, I met a student named Joseph. He towered over me at 6-foot-4 and weighing 300 pounds. At first, I didn't know what to expect from him.I was surprised to learn he had failed the 9th grade twice and with this being his third try he was in the same grade as his younger brother, Jason. Joe and I became friends fast. I was treated differently because of my skin color but Joe did not judge me. Through students chit-chatter, I learned Joe was very popular and on the football team but had unexpectedly quit his first year. Joe struggled with his classes especially in English and Mathematics. One day in English, another kid was struggling to read a passage aloud, the classroom was filled with snickers and the teacher made the poor kid continue. After class, Joe comforted the kid and made him smile. That was his talent,, he had the ability to make people feel better.
As many people have told me before, it is a very different ballgame than middle school’s easy going years. There is much more work, the classes are harder, and the environment is completely different. Many people’s grades may slip and they may cower in fear at the barrage of assignments they receive class after class. Unlike other people, I am confident in my ability to excel at all classes and to sustain exemplary grades. Therefore, while many are trembling in fear at the prodigious assignments and work is bombarding them from all angles, I will be at ease, knowing that whatever obstacle is thrown my way, I will conquer it and be its own
Students encounter many complications during their school career. Some students are smart, but just don’t apply themselves, or have similar hardships that are going on in their lives. These can be fixed if one can find motivation and confidence. In the story “Zero,” Paul Logan coasts through high school and college. Logan doesn’t know the tools to succeed in school, which causes his grades to fall. In the story “The Jacket,” Gary Soto explains how the way one dresses can influences how they feel about themself. Which in this case he gets an ugly jacket; which causes him to be depressed and his grades to fall. Albeit Logan and Soto went through similar hardships, they both succeed with motivation and confidence.
...roughout the session. “Good teachers are not born, nor are they made by tutors. They make themselves. Whats more, anyone can teach well. Research shows that there is no personality type that makes a good teacher. Whether you are a shy introvert or an enthusiastic extrovert, you can teach effectively, but only if you know how to learn from your mistakes and your successes”. (Petty 2009 pg.516 2009)
In the case study, Jim Colbert, a third grade teacher, struggles to help a boy named Carlos. This Public School 111 was located in a metropolitan, run down neighborhood. The school was surrounded by drug dealers and trash. However, the inside of the school was bright and welcoming. Here the students were placed according to their abilities, and Jim had a 3-A class for the high achieving students. Jim had a routine that he followed every day. He would take the learning and apply it to the student’s lives with practical examples. To begin the day Jim would go through the homework with the students, and here he began to notice that Carlos was misspelling many of his words. Carlos comprehended the readings, but he was behind in his spelling. Jim talked with the other third grade teacher, Paul, about Carlos. Then, he talked to Carlos about the problem, asking him if he could get help at home. Here Jim discovered that Carlos would get little to no help at home. Jim sent home a dictionary with Carlos so that he could check his spelling, and he saw
Using Allison’s strengths and interests is important to helping her become a successful student. This is the method of helping Bender, Brian and any other student become successful in school. Building on the student strengths, while allowing them to work on their weaknesses is important for all students and especially for twice-exceptional students in the classroom. When looking at the student’s weakness it is important to understand that their behavior is not a weakness, but a result of an underlying cause. Examining the cause of the behavior will help recognize the challenge areas for improvement by understanding the underlying cause for the behavior. After understanding the student’s strengths and challenges, the teachers can then fully help the student learn to the best of their abilities.
I had the opportunity to interview with the school psychologists on our campus. She currently holds a master’s level degree in psychology and has worked for the district for 10 years now with 3 of those years at this location. Discussing what she does on a regular bases she explained how she reaches out to contacts within the community to help parents and children with unresolved issues to help them find answers. She creates activities that help to nurture a better lifestyle for these families. I discussed with her in length about these events and she described them as a social environment conducive to a higher quality in learning, social interaction and family lifestyle. The reason for planning these events in our campus is because of the lower demographics and the campus considered a special class of schools which are known as Title 1 which receives more aid than other campuses.
In reality, Edwards has no idea what Hell is actually like, but using the common image of it and some fancy words, he is able to enhance it a little. If he would have just said Hell is like oasis, people would not have repented. If he said it was like living in the wilderness, people would not have listened. Even if he said it was like prison, some people still might think it won’t be that bad. He had to go for the sure way of making people repent, which was telling the people that it is more extreme than any other person at that time described it, “When God Beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to you strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down as it were, into an infinite gloom; He will have no compassion upon you, he will not forbear the execution of his wrath, or in the least lighten his
School counseling has evolved over the years into a significant component of the educational system. School counselors are taking on new roles in schools as leaders, working with “school administration and staff in developing student attitudes and behavior which are necessary to maintain proper control, acceptable standards of self-discipline and a suitable learning environment within the school” (Secondary School Counselor 2012). Counselors work in “diverse community settings designed to provide a variety of counseling, rehabilitation, and support services” (Counselors, 2010). When working in a school district as a counselor, you can either be an elementary school counselor, middle school counselor or a high school counselor. This essays explores a recent interview with a high school counselor.
Although the main theme of this sermon was the Anger of God, this sermon is meant to depict the relationship between the Holy God and sinful man. First of all, Edwards describes the natural condition of man as being bleak. He says that God’s fury “burns against them”, that God’s “glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit hath opened its mouth under them” (196). What he means by this is that “unconverted men” are in a standing with God that is precarious (196). They have not yet fallen under the judgment of God, but could at any given time be swallowed whole by the wrath of God. He continues to picture this situation by describing a man as “walk[ing] over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they will not bear their weight, and these places are not seen” (197). The general reason that man is in this state is because his wickedness is great. Edwards believes that man in his natural state is completely sinful. He states that “There are those corrupt principles, in reigning power in them, and in full possession of them, that are seeds of hell fire” (196). He shows that every man has nothing but evil inside of him, and can do nothing to rid himself of it. All of this evil makes a man “as it were heavy as lead, and to tend downwards with great weight and pressure towards hell” (199). He also believes that man’s righteousness is weak, and anyone that relies on his good works to earn his way into a relationship with God is destined to fail. He says that all of the good deeds that a man could do would keep him out of hell just as much as “a spider's web would have to stop a falling rock” (199).
An effective school leader possesses skills to create, implement, evaluate, improve and share a staff development plan. I met with Ben Rhodes, Sandy Creek Middle School’s principal, to interview him on the specific elements of his yearly staff development plan. We began with the design process focusing on the district and school goals. District goals include improving literacy across the content areas in reading and writing, Guaranteed and Viable Curriculum (GVC). Guaranteed and Viable Technology (GVT), and Closing the Achievement Gap (Equity in Excellence). Using a variety of assessments to focus on specific needs, Ben Rhodes and Mary Sonya, our Pupil Achievement Specialist, examined CSAP, Explore, MAP, and RAD data. They use the Colorado Growth Model to help guide them to determine if students have made adequate yearly progress. Together, they created the plan that included the district goals mentioned above as well as continuing to include new technology skills, information on special education changes with Response to Intervention (RTI), maintaining current staff implementation of literacy goals and a new goal of raising achievement in math.
There is a scene where Cheef gets off the boat to find mangos in the jungle along with Willard and are surprised by a tiger and they run back to the boat terrified. This episode has its counterpart in the "Heart of Darkness" when a hippo is ravaging the lands.
The two main characters in Heart of Darkness, Marlow and Kurtz are used to show the true nature of man, that is, the capacity for good and evil within humanity. The central character is a thirty two year old sailor, Charlie Marlow. Marlow is the primary narrator in the novel, therefore his thought’s, opinions, experiences and revelations, shape the entire novels themes and the value system put forward. Marlow illustrates how forces of light and darkness serve to weave the human soul together; thus, essentially how good and evil are reflected in an individual. This is particularly important regarding the construction of Marlow, who is essentially a biased narrator, and a product of his European upbringing. An example is his inability to deal with the dying natives at the “grove of death”, offering a native a biscuit as an apparent kind gesture. Yet this is only due to him not being confronted with situations like this previously where his own values, and the whole premise behind colonialism, the exploitation is revealed. The patriarchial views of women he displays also outline the background of Marlow and the a...
One of the components that consist of the student success includes their environment, in other words, the school itself. School is a place where the students spends most of their time, interacting with people and friends. As I recall, high school served as a second home for me, in which I felt very comfortable and safe in. Most of my days I was in school surrounded with friends and teachers that supported me, causing me to keep moving forward and succeed. In Dangerous MInds, the school was first shown with a positive appearance as its location seemed to be in a so to say “white” neighborhood; no grafitti, spacious residence zones, and people from high incomes who are able to afford houses and cars (2.25). Though that was just a facade; inside the school was not very appealing because of the way students behaved themselves, which mostly involved Ms. Johnson 's students. An example was when a student threatens Emilio to death because
Gearheart, Bill and Carol and Mel Weishahn. The Exceptional Student in the Regular Classroom (Sixth Edition). Published by Merrill, 1999.