Thursday, October 30, 2008

Middle School - Test of Wills


Ruby Washington/The New York Times
Corinne Kaufman, a math teacher at Seth Low Intermediate School in Brooklyn, has spent 17 years working with middle school students, learning how to turn insults into teaching moments and head off fights.
My current dyad placement is at Maplewood K-8 Co-op, Edmonds in the 7th and 8th grade LA and art class. It is a unique school in that parents are very involved in thier child's academic success and the middle school sector at Maplewood is more like a close knit community of about 110 students total. They have abundant resources and financial support from the parents. Though I am learning a lot here, I can't help but feel like my experience here will be somewhat limited. For instance this particular situation in the picture above-I can never see happening at Maplewood.
The kids are pretty wholesome and "obedient". For the most part, I don't think the teachers that I work with at Maplewood ever had to experience this kind of interaction with their students. I don't know how I would react in a situation like this. Anyone else with a drastically different experience want to share?
Here's the link to The Critical Years series done by NY Times below. Lots of interesting perspectives, articles and media! http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/education/series/thecriticalyears/index.html

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