First School Visit : Opposites

On Wednesday I went to my school for the first time. It is a middle school in Providence that I will refer to as The Bat Cave. The teacher, Mrs. Qwerty, was not in class, so there were two teachers, on covered the first period that I was there, and another to cover the second period that I was there for. I was amazed at that the two teachers that covered the classes were polar opposites of one another. The first one, Mrs. Absolutesilence demanded that the class be silent, and no-one made a sound. You could hear a pin drop. The students all worked hard on their assignments. I helped two students, Chevy and Honda, and they were both well behaved, respectful, and worked hard the entire class. Whenever they were having trouble, I would point them in the right direction in their reading, and they were able to find their answer. The classes lasted for about 45 minutes, and then another class came in, and another teacher to cover. This teacher, Mrs. Pleasewalkalloverme, was an embarrassment to the school. There were only 16 students in the class, and I was counting the minutes until the class was over. For 45 minutes, there was constant talking, yelling, and literally no work got done. The assignments for the two classes were exactly the same, but the effort was completely different. At one point, a student, Godzilla, picked up a globe, tried to throw it at someone, and it hit the floor and broke. Another student, Tyrannosaurus Rex started pushing another kid, and it looked like they were going to get into a fight. Mrs. Pleasewalkalloverme had no control over the class. To call that class a zoo is an insult to zoo’s. As bad as it was, one student did approach me and ask me for help on his work, which I was more than happy to provide. I did appreciate this visit, even though I did not get to meet the teacher, because I got to see two different teaching styles. Mrs. Absolutesilence ascribed to Delpit’s rules of the culture of power, asserting herself and the rules of the classroom immediately, and keeping order throughout the class, while Mrs. Pleasewalkalloverme, never did anything to assert authority, or to make clear the rules of the culture of power.