Response to Prompt 1

The elementary school that I am tutoring this semester is located in an urban area in which buildings and houses in the surrounding area are mostly three family apartment buildings mixed in with business offices and small businesses. The area is populated with people who are mostly of African or Hispanic American descent. Although most of the buildings in the area need some maintenance, there is an effort being made to renovate the neighborhood. There has been a new technical high school built nearby, as well as new tenement houses and renovated houses that have intermingled with old construction to give the neighborhood a more welcoming look. The school is made of grey bricks with a large glass front entrance that welcomes light into the main foyer. The sign for the building is small which makes it hard to spot from the road. There is a playground and a field for the students and teachers to enjoy at recess when the weather permits.


I am helping Ms. Roberts with her second grade math lessons. She is a teacher of color and her class consists of twenty Hispanic and African American children in the ratio of approximately 50/50. Almost ninety five percent of the students in Franklin Elementary come from low-income families and qualify for subsidized lunches.


The room is neat and orderly, and the shelving that runs along the windows is filled with books, learning materials, paper and supplies. The pegboards on either side of each chalkboard are labeled with a different subject and decorated with posters and work that the students produced. For instance, the area labeled "Science" has a graph in which the students plotted the weather from day to day for analysis at different seasons in the school year. The center of the room is arranged with 5-6 small tables in which the students sit in small groups to do assignments. On the floor lays a rug where lessons can be taught while the students sit in front of the teacher. This makes is much easier to make sure that all of the students are paying attention. Ms. Roberts' small desk is in the corner near the windows, and is almost indistinguishable from the shelves around it due to the piles of papers, folders and books stacked upon it. All of the space in the classroom is very well organize and used up very efficiently with materials for the students which leaves Ms. Roberts with little time or space for her own materials.


The class is very well behaved and it was clearly apparent that Ms. Roberts is a well trained disciplinarian who maintains order by speaking very clearly and directly to students. On the door is a list of traits for good behavior and work habits such as "raise your hand", "no calling out" and "be respectful." These traits are valued greatly in the classroom and are instilled by the teacher as a solid foundation for a functioning learning atmosphere. With good behavior as a foundation, the primary structure of Ms. Roberts' pedagogy is critical thinking. As stated by her, "I like to challenge them. Get them to think critically." She also uses a combination of direct and process approaches in her methods of teaching. As I watched her start the math lesson, she did not begin by lecturing the class on the methods for solving the problem at hand. Instead, she posed the lesson as a problem. She asked the students first how they would solve the problem and in what situations they would encounter such a problem in their everyday life. After listening to their responses, she then gave a small lecture and visual demonstration on monetary equivalencies. The class then split up to work in groups so that children with a deficiency in Math were grouped with those with better established skills. This method of pedagogy empowers her students by letting them be the experts for a while, as well as relating the material to situations the children are familiar with. It also promotes social interaction between students. Ms. Roberts possesses many of the qualities of the culturally competent teacher that will be addressed more thoroughly in later prompts.