CF Students

2B Block of Sports Management has thirty-four students. As shown below, the class is predominantly white:

Although the percentage of Anglo students is a bit higher and the percentage of Latino students is a bit lower (70% and 17% respectively), the ethnic breakdown of this class is surprisingly similar to the overall school ethnic breakdown. Even though there does not seem to be any obvious division between students in this classroom and students chat with other students sitting around them regardless of race, when left to choose their own groups the students of will group with other students of their ethnicity. This alerts me as a teacher that the students do not have a problem talking to or working with students of another race, but if given the choice they prefer to be grouped with students of the same race. This is also reflective of what can be seen in the hallways outside of class. As a teacher this encourages me to have the students work in groups that I select so they can get used to working with other students besides their chosen partner. Working with different students will help the students learn to work with many different personalities and also gain valuable, new opinions they may not have heard before. Hopefully, it will also foster a new respect and possibly new friendships between the students.

A large percentage of the class are also athletes with the majority of those playing football. It is obvious which students play football as they wear green, collared shirts on game days. I have also seen three dance team members, one cheerleader, and two baseball players. Other students have expressed interested in lacrosse and rugby. It is not surprising that a large percentage of students in a class revolving around sports marketing are athletes, but it was surprising to see the large number of football players. Even though they are on the same team, though, there is a definite devision between the football squad in the classroom, most likely due to what grade the students are in; seniors tend to sit on one side of the classroom while juniors sit on the other side. The grade level separation is actually a common theme for the entire class, with seniors sitting in one area and the juniors and very few sophomores sitting on the other side of the classroom. This reinforces the need to have teacher-created groups for students for the reasons already stated above. The high level of interest in sports definitely makes it easy to find topics that are relevant to the students, but it will be important to remember to use different genres of sports for examples and modeling so that all students see the sport that they enjoy represented.

The last characteristic of the class is that it is predominantly male. There are ten female students and twenty-three male students (30 % to 70% respectively). The girls in this class tend to be fairly quiet during discussions, although they are quite chatty in their own personal circle. I think one important thing to remember as a teacher is it would be easy to slant the whole class towards sports that men enjoy, especially with the large male student percentage. I will try to give examples of the sports the girls in the class like, including dance, cheerleading, volleyball, and lacrosse.

The class also has four TAG students and one student with an IEP. This class if fairly creative, being an elective marketing course, so I am not overly worried about the TAG students being challenged. Plus, since I am teaching in a block class scenario, I only have six classroom session of 90 minutes to teach my whole unit. We will be covering so much information, my biggest concern will be making sure the lessons are taught in a way that keeps the TAG students engaged and not bored. “Jacob”, the student with the IEP, seems to be only mildly affected by ADHD. His IEP states he needs extended time for long assignments or long tests, a copy of any class notes, and directions clarified and additional checking up from the teacher to make sure he understands the directions that were told to him. Although it is important to remember Jacob has these needs, I do not see coverage of those needs as unreasonable or something that will take time away from my lessons.

CF Classroom

When the new school library was built at Tigard High School, the old library was transformed into four classrooms that are now dedicated to the Business Department. Due to fire safety issues, three of the classrooms are interconnect with each of these three classes having a door connecting to the hallway and a door connecting to another business classroom. This makes it easy for the teachers in the Business Department communicate during the day if they have questions or need help with something. The classrooms are located in the same hallway as the main office. This is not only convenient access to the office for the teachers, but also cuts down on noise in the hallway outside of the classroom.

Three of the four classrooms are shared classrooms and do not have a teacher desk in the classroom. There is a dedicated teacher station in each of these classrooms that has a small desk with a chair and a computer. Because the classrooms are shared, there is a Business Department office where four of the teachers have their desks. This actually promotes a very good relationship between the Business teachers as they see each other many times throughout the day, and have a common place to meet before and after classes.

The classroom where I will be teaching Business Marketing is on the West end of the block of classrooms.

It has a short hallway that leads to the entrance door with student lockers on both sides of the hall. There is a entrance corridor once you enter the classroom with storage cabinets on the right side of the corridor. Once you enter the main classroom there are computer banks placed on the outer walls of the classroom. In the middle of the classroom there are thirty-five individual desks lined up in five rows of seven. All the desks face toward the wall opposite the main entrance door. There is a white board located on the West wall of the classroom, with a SMARTboard mounted on the South wall and a large bulletin board mounted on the East wall. The teacher’s station, two printers, and a television with a dvd player are all located in the South section of the classroom around the SMARTboard. Finally, there are two garbage cans in the classroom: one at the end of the entrance corridor and one by the printers. The ceiling of the class is vaulted, since it was the old library, and has three skylights.

Because of the vaulted ceilings and the natural light from the skylights makes the cramped room seems very large and open, even with so many desks and computers in the room. There are usually marketing posters, banners, or other examples of student work displayed on the bulletin board, while the teachers use the whiteboard to write up class objectives or important school information. The desks are close together so when the students do work in groups it is easy for them to move into their groups.

This room is very conducive to an elective, business marketing class. The light and open atmosphere give it a contemporary feel that is not typical of most classrooms. This fits with the somewhat laid-back attitude of the subject matter; although the students do a lot of work in Business Marketing, it is an elective class where the students do many in-class projects that revolve around a fictitious professional sports team. The class helps create the feel of a marketing department as it allows movement and has many of the necessary creative materials already in the classroom.

Overall I think this classroom structure has a positive impact on the students. Not only are all materials needed for lessons already in the room (including enough computers for each student to have their own), but there is a SMARTboard which will be fun to utilize for lessons. There are, however, two issues that I think will be challenging when it comes to classroom management. The first issue has to do with students’ misuse of the computers. Most of the computers screens face the classroom so it is easy to monitor what the students are working on while they are connected to the internet, but there is a row seven computers that are closest to the desks where the screens face toward the wall so the teacher cannot see what the student is doing unless she walks between the rows of the computers. I have observed many students get on their Facebook page or youtube.com while using these computers; students get an automatic, one-hour detention when they access either of these sites on the computer during class time. To combat this, I am going to make the students fill up all computers against the walls before a computer in the freestanding row can be used. If there is a computer on the wall that is open, I will make the student move to that computer so I can see what he or she is doing while on the internet.

The second classroom management issue has to do with how close the desks are placed together. The Business Marketing class I will be teaching is large with thirty-three students. Because of the size of the class and the close proximity of the seating, I will have to be very aware of small, disruptive talking that can occur. Instead of trying to talk over these small side conversations, I will need to pause and wait for the students to quiet down. I have observed a couple of instances when the teacher did not pause to wait for quiet, the students merely started talking louder, which generally led to even more students starting up their own discussions. In a large classroom it is always important to try to control unnecessary conversations, but it will be even more important in a very crowded, very large elective marketing class.

CF School

The school population at Tigard High School has a very similar demographic breakdown as the surrounding community:

The main difference is a lower percentage of White students and a slightly higher percentage of Latino students. The next highest student ethnic group is Asian/Pacific Islander. Even so, this group is still less than half the size of the Latino population and one-tenth the size of the White population. In the classes I have observed, although everyone seems to get along, there are definite groups based on ethnicity when students are allowed to choose their own seating arrangement. As a teacher it will be important to teach a multi-cultural curriculum that will incorporate the varied interests and values of all the students. It will also be very important to take note of any unconscious bias I have and remember to not look at students through the lens of a stereotype.

For a community that has a median household income level of over $64,000, the school still has almost twenty percent of its students being eligible for free lunch. This is an important socio-economic dynamic of the school. The income for the families of these students has a large range from high to low, and this could create issues in the school. There could be negative relationships between students that are based merely on where the students live within the district. Put this together with ethnic cliques and there could be some difficult social issues. Another important presence in the school that is not shown in the statistics above is that there are GLBT students that attend Tigard. I witnessed on lesbian couple holding hands the first day I observed at the high school. All these factors make it very important for a teacher to teach respect and tolerance in the classroom. As a teacher I need to be aware of the stresses these students feel, be a positive role model, and demand respect and tolerance in my classroom and the school halls.

The campus and school itself are massive. The school sits on 43.65 acres. The main school building is 272,095 square feet. In addition to the main building there is a small portable unit (19,890 square feet), an auditorium and cafeteria (17,654 square feet), and a swim center (17,338 square feet). In total, the school is 326,977 square feet. The school has three levels, two eating areas, five main halls, two gyms, two sports facility rooms, a full size auditorium, an additional stage in the cafeteria, an aquatics building, a daycare facility, and ninety-three classrooms. The various different halls in the building make it easy for students to stick to their own group of friends. It also makes it difficult for teachers to get to know students who are not in their classes or do not have lockers in their specific hallway. The overall feel of the school is kind of like a small city. There are many people moving through the halls and there are some people standing in small groups talking to each other; it is very easy to pass hundreds of people from Point A to Point B without making eye contact or saying hello to one single person. It seems like the school would be a very intimidating place to be a new student. One way a teacher can combat this is walking the school during lunch times (if there is time). My supervising teacher had third block prep period last year, which coincided with first lunch. She and another business teacher would walk the school at first lunch and just talk to the students; students they knew and students they had never met before. The teachers found out that the students really liked that they took the time to talk and get to know them even though the students did not have either teacher in a class. The fact that students appreciate it when a teacher makes an effort to get to know them is a good thing to remember, especially as a new teacher in a large school.

94% of the licensed staff in the Tigard-Tualatin School District are highly certified. Tigard High School has eighty-three teachers, nine other licensed staff members, sixteen instructional assistants, and four administrators. There is a student to teacher ratio of 24/1. I have observed classes as small as twenty students and as large as thirty-three students, so there is a wide range of class sizes at the school. 10% of the student population is considered special education students, while there are eighty-four ELL students and 124 TAG students. I have observed a Algebra class where out of thirty students, ten were ELL students. Tigard has five licensed staff members dedicated to the ESOL program with many additional teachers being SIOP trained. This shows that the school is dedicated to helping its students with special needs regardless of the need. Special Education students are put into mainstream classrooms as much as possible. My supervisory teacher talked with a student in the hall that had physical and mental disabilities about how he was graduating this year. She told me that he had been in her Business Technologies class two years previously. A teacher needs to be aware of any needs a student has and make sure she is familiar with the services that the school has to help that student.

CF Community

Tigard High School is located in Tigard, a city in Washington County, Oregon. Tigard became a city in 1961. Since 1970 to 2009, the population has grown from 6,300 residents to 50,309 residents respectively. The breakdown of the current population is seen below:



The estimated median household income in 2008 was $64,944, which was well over the Oregon state median of $50,169. In addition, the estimated median house/condo value of the Tigard area in 2008 was $335,411, which was also above the Oregon state median of $273,300. Even though Tigard’s average for household income and house value are higher than the state average, there is a wide range of socio-economic households in the area. House values range from $30,069 to over $380,000, with many three or four unit townhouse units having values of over $200,000 that could be skewing the data. The high level of multi-unit dwellings means that many families may rent, therefore the socio-economic breakdown of the area is most likely more diverse than the house value median illustrates.

The community around the school is also very diverse. There is a mix of residential, commercial, light industrial, and heavy industrial areas surrounding the school. The school is located on a street that connects two major traffic ways: the I-5 freeway and the 99W highway. West of the school there is a large strip mall on 99W, and East of the school there is a large, open shopping mall with a theater. In addition, there are various commercial and light industrial buildings, and Northeast of the school there is a large business complex that houses many larger companies, including an emergency clinic and multiple doctor offices. Because of this the commuting population increases by 33% during the day. There are pockets of residential areas scattered throughout the neighborhood directly around the school, with the largest neighborhood directly North of the school. There is also a very large residential area West of 99E on a hill called Bull Mountain.

Even though Tigard is considered a suburb of Portland, the school still has an urban feel as there is so much business traffic surrounding it during the day. There are many distractions that could easily lure students from the school, especially shopping and the movie theater. Most of this is within walking distance as well, which could possibly lead to students deciding not to attend class. To combat this the school does not allow Freshman and Sophomores to leave campus for lunch, and Juniors and Seniors can only leave campus for lunch if they have their parents’ permission.

The Tualatin-Tigard School District is a well funded school district, but it is important to remember that there are many different levels of socio-economic students attending the school. This definitely plays into school and classroom dynamics. Another factor a teacher at Tigard High has to deal with is all the outside activities that the students could easily engage in if they decided not to come to class. This creates a challenge for a teacher to keep her students interested enough to keep coming to class. Students skipping class could also affect the overall dynamic of the class as those students that missed lessons would be behind and could cause the whole class to fall behind. Finally, with easy access to both a freeway and a highway, it is important for a teacher to be aware of who is in the school and report anyone she sees in the school that does not look like he or she belong. Safety of students and school staff is definitely an issue that should not be overlooked.

Different Kinds of Kids

Kids I find easy to like: honest, hard-working, empathetic to others' feelings, accepting of others' differences, respectful to people and things, expressive, shy, and especially those who share their Halloween candy. I like most children, even those that seem difficult or irritating at times.

Kids I find it hard to like: kids who treat other kids with cruelty, kids who think they are better than other people (for any reason), kids who are disrespectful to other people and things, kids who think a person's worth is based on their looks, money, etc. "Queen Bees" and other kids who find pleasure out of other kids' pain.

Kids I feel sorry for: kids who are abused, kids who don't feel like they have any friends, kids who are tormented by others for any reason, kids who are taught racism, bigotry, and intolerance by their family and friends and think it is ok.

Kids I feel threatened by: kids who have been hurt enough in their life that they want to make other people hurt.

Kids you identify with: kids who like sports, kids who like music, kids who like roller coasters and cotton candy, kids who want to be accepted, kids that want to have friends, kids that want to make their parents happy, kids who struggle with self esteem, kids that are sensitive and end up getting hurt a lot.

Kids I gravitate toward: kids that need extra help on understanding something in class, kids that like to talk to me, kids who are genuine.

Kids you feel inadequate around: I mostly feel inadequate around my own kids - I have more self-doubt about my abilities as a mother than in any other area of my life. Not all the time, but enough to make me feel inadequate at times.

Kids you probably don't even notice: I cannot place a kind of kid that I would not even notice. That concept seems utterly foreign to me.

Reflection 3.7

A Good Job Makes a Difference

I interviewed a friend of mine that is a 7th and 8th grade teacher at a middle school in a rural area Northeast of Salem. She estimated the average, gross, annual income for a family in her district to be around $40,000. Using this information I created the following spreadsheet to determine a budget for a family who owns their house (making $40,000) and a family who is renting a house or an apartment (making $30,000):

It is important to note that I did not figure in any expenses related to children activities (such as sports, dance, music, etc.), clothing expenses, medical expenses (co-pays, emergency room trips), savings, or various "surprise" issues such as needing to call a plumber, replacing tires on the car, etc. This exercise reinforced to me that as a teacher you have to constantly keep all aspects of your student's family in mind. Economics play a large role in the relationships a student may have with other students and also the way a student will respond to me as a teacher.

Achievement

The most basic form of achievement for me would be every student passing my class. This would show me one of two things: all of my students were really smart that year or I was an effective teacher. Regardless, if everyone in my class receives a passing grade (after being assessed appropriately in a way that measures their understanding of course objectives) that would be an immediate form of achievement for me as a teacher.

Another way I would feel like I have achieved as a teacher is if my students come back and visit me after they get promoted to high school. This would be more possible at a campus like North Marion where all the school buildings are located on the same campus. A student taking the time to drop in just to say hello and update you on their current activities shows that you made a connection with that student.

Finally, the ultimate sign of achievement for me would be having a student come back after they have graduated from college, or even just receive a note or graduation announcement from a student. It would mean even more if it was a student that had no plans to attend a college or university before they took my class. For that matter, it could be a student letting me know of any success in his or her life - perhaps his or her success would be having a happy marriage and children or devoting time to helping the homeless at a mission. Any proof that I actually created a relationship with students that made them realize that they can accomplish their goals and their self-worth would be the ultimate form of achievement for me.