Observing “At Risk” Students – Trav Chew

Today’s reading immediately reminded me of my experience last semester while doing my observing at Pleasant Valley High School.  I attended the last two periods of the day, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for a couple of months.  I would arrive right after the lunch period, and join the young teacher in her classroom about ten minutes before the bell would ring and the students would begin filing in.  On the first day of class, the teacher informed that the first period was her “good class,” while the second period was comprised of the “at risk” students.  Although they were all juniors, it was interesting that she made this distinction, and that she felt it necessary to tell me right away.  It might just be because this comment resonated with me, but I feel like this was one of the first things she told me after introducing herself.  She specified the second periods “at risk” status by stating that none of them were likely to attend college after high school.  This seemed like a strange thing to say about a group of sixteen and seventeen year old students.  Regardless of their background, or current work ethic, as a future high school teacher, I feel like one of my duties will be to do anything in my power to inspire them to seek higher education.  So it was very surprising to me to hear from this young teacher that she had essentially written them off as college students.

Over the next few months, it became clear that she was teaching the two classes much differently, although I truly could not tell the difference between the students in the two classes.  The only major discrepancy was the number of students in each classroom.  The “at risk” group had only sixteen students left from a class of originally over thirty students.  All the others had apparently dropped out of school.  What remained was a group of students that I was excited to meet with every day, who continuously surprised and delighted me with their inquisitiveness and willingness to listen and learn.  The other period, which was still at about thirty students, moved at a much faster pace, but didn’t exhibit any greater capacity to learn than the other students.  But, as the semester progressed I noticed that the teacher moved at a much faster pace, and trusted these students with more intensive reading and analysis, while the other class slowly, and often painfully moved through the material.  Her lessons were more simplistic, and in my opinion facilitated a less conducive environment for working.  Where one the first class was encouraged to engage in group projects and discussions, the second class was essentially guided through each and every period by the hand.

The lessons for the second class were typically short and to the point, rarely challenging the students to think outside the box.  Some of these students were clearly frustrated with the pace of the class.  One of the students, a sharp kid named Derrick would finish every in class reading on his own, and answer any questions she had posed for the reading within a matter of minutes.  Then he would sit quietly in the back and make faces at the rest of the class as they did what was called a “popcorn” in class reading.  Basically this was a painfully slow reading exercise where they would each read a paragraph or two from their books, then pick another student from the class to read next.  It became a big joke basically because none of them wanted to read, so they delighted in picking on each other.  After a couple paragraphs, the student would stop reading, smile and choose whoever had picked on them in the past, getting their revenge.  The other period rarely did in class reading at all.  They were expected to do the reading on their own, then spend the class discussing the significance of the text, guided by the questions posed by the teacher the day before.

I felt like the second period would have benefited much more from the method used for the other class.  From what I could tell, the marginalized techniques used for teaching them played directly into the teacher’s conception of their learning abilities, and the conception of themselves.  First of all, they knew why they were all in that class together.  On numerous occasions I heard them refer to themselves as the “stupid class” and other self degrading classifications.  What frustrated me was they seemed absolutely as capable as the other students, but essentially weren’t given the same opportunities to showcase their abilities.  The few occasions where class discussions weren’t inhibited by mundane worksheets or in class readings, all these unique students proved to be very interested in the subjects, and more than willing to express their views on the texts.  I think that the watered down atmosphere created in the second period stymied their creativity, and in many cases inhibited a healthy learning environment.  The article reinforced all of my views on this subject, and further inspired me to push back against the concept of remediation.  I saw first hand how this can be detrimental to students, and I can’t wait to have an opportunity to let the brilliance shine from each of my students.  If given the right environment to learn, I’m confident that everyone has something special to offer a classroom of their peers, and me as an educator.