2/16/11

Warm weather takes its toll on PLC attendance! I walk into the classroom feeling at home for the first time, ready for the day's activities, and am shocked to find 3 students. Yes, THREE from a class of about 14. Lucky for me Elyse was one of the ones in attendance. She was excited to see me there again and we eagerly sat down to begin working. However, the teacher had other plans. Today would be devoted to "small group." We gathered around the center table, all 5 of us including the teacher and then realized today would be an ineffective day for the grouping because of the lack of students. We returned to E2020 to continue online progress. Elyse confessed right away her dislike for the program as it slowly opened and froze on the screen. She said a lot of it is redundant and a hassle. It takes half the time to just load the pages once you can navigate through to where you left off the day before. We ended up printing off her stories because the site was taking too long. She offered to read the lengthy passages out loud to me to my surprise, this was not a short story. Instead we ended up compromising and rotating the aloud reading. She was an excellent reader. My reading out loud is not as strong as hers was actually. I naturally stumble across words or misspeak but she was very impressive aloud. After reading we worked through a few assignments but the majority of the day was spent reading passages. I was surprised and discouraged at how long some of the readings were. I think that is another flaw of the E2020 system. The readings just seemed too unnecessarily long. The program should take into account the students they are attempting to help and realize most already lack motivation and drive, giving extremely long works to read is not helping the problem. Even Elyse, who I before mentioned was very driven had a hard time completing all the readings and was tempted to skip ahead or skip the readings all together and simply spark note the section. Many of the following questions gave the section to which it was referring to in the question or asked about definitions and tone. Elyse printed off the last, long, story and brought it home to read for homework. I was also surprised by this, never before had any homework been mentioned or suggested. She took it upon herself to read it to get even farther ahead.
She seems to have a great relationship with her teacher. They converse on the same level. I think it a school like this it would be easy to belittle or talk down to unconsciously to the students. Her tone was friendly and they talked without pressure. The teacher also didn't try to be their friend at the same time, or be like them. After a while, how Elyse spoke (ebonics) caught on to me without me even knowing it. However, the teacher remained poised and in control of everything in each conversation. She did not change to get on their level, so to speak.
Leaving the PLC I encountered rude comments and stares from the construction workers beside the building and it really bothered me. Not because of the comments that I can ignore, but because this is what the students have to deal with too. They are not being given a good example or friendly environment to make them WANT to come. The workers were roudy and could not care less about their actions but to the students, their actions may make a different in their attitude and even attendance. If they are surrounded by these obnoxious construction workers everyday, I think it could possibly deter motivation for graduating. I also understand not much can be done in this area though and it must simply be tolerated.