School Visit 3

I entered the Bat Cave for a third time. After parking, I was faced with a little annoyance, all the doors to the school were locked, and the doorbell was not working, or rather, no one was answering it. It took me five to ten minutes to finally get into the school. When I got into the school, Mrs. Qwerty was not in her classroom. It was another ten minute wait until she finally got to her room, and then another few minutes until the class began.

The third quarter is winding down, and grades close in the beginning of April. Both classes were assigned some book work, and then had the opportunity to do makeup work, and then some extra-credit work in order to boost their grade.

I worked with two students in the first class. One of the students was ‘Domino,’ who I had worked with before, and the other, I will call ‘Blue.’ The students were all given a Chapter Review sheet, and had to answer several questions about colonialism. I would read the question with the student, and then look through the text book to help them find the answer. I would find the answer, and point out the page number, and section that the answer could be found on.

The second class was much like the first one, where I helped two students complete the same assignment that the other class had to do. In this second class, I worked with ‘Red’ and ‘Pony Tail.’ ‘Red’ was very quiet, and once he finished working with me went back to his desk, and talked with a few friends. ‘Pony Tail’ on the other hand was very talkative. He told me about the sports that he plays, and his aspirations of playing professional basketball, and, failing that, a career in architecture. We talked about different aspects of school while completing the assignment.

The most interesting part of this visit came in the second class. One of the students, ‘Warlord’ was causing nothing but problems. He was failing to conform to Delpit’s culture of power. He was ignoring the rules, and asserting his own principles in the classroom, namely, he could talk to whomever he wanted, and do whatever he wanted in the class, while ignoring his work. Just as that second class, which was the last for the day, was wrapping up, his mother came into the classroom, and he, his mother, the Mrs. Qwerty and an assistant principle had a discipline meeting with the student, where they stressed the importance of following the rules of the classroom. The adults were reinforcing, and making known, clearly defined rules for the classroom. Hopefully the student will understand these rules, and start behaving better in the classroom. However, I got the feeling that this was not the first meeting of this sort to be had, and this makes me think that there are time constraints on the rules of power. If the rules of the culture of power are not clearly defined early to the child, then they may not ever be able to follow them, or it will be more difficult for them to conform to those rules.