They say you can't teach the same thing to two groups of kids in the same with and expect the same results. They are correct.
Last semester, I spent my observation time in second and third hour, so I saw this group of students as well as another. This semester, I am with World Studies the whole time, but I did sit in on a session of Mr. Tree's third hour World History class to further explore the different cultures in a classroom. It's surprising not only how different World Studies is from third hour, but also how different the first trimester's session of third hour World History is from the current trimester's group. Even though probably half of the class is the same, the dynamic is totally different. Your audience, then, is extremely variable as a teacher, even between hours of a required class for all 10th graders.
To give some background, the third hour group from last trimester was, in Mr. Tree's opinion, his most well behaved class. There were a number of special ed students in the class, as well as a para pro to assist them. Students were generally respectful and on task.
Many of the students, including the special ed students and the para pro, remain in third hour this tri, while others have changed, making the class more talkative than before, but the manner in which the class is talkative is very different from World Studies. Observing third hour on the day that there was the large group work activity that I discussed in the previous post, there were some definite differences. Though the classroom had groups of talkative people, the discussion seemed to be largely on task. The discussion and environment seemed to be much more respectful than in World Studies, where open animosity is somewhat common, and passive aggressiveness is the norm. A few students did offer pointed comments to others, but the level of segregation in only one's typical friend groups was not as high, with disrespectful comments limited to one student, who was quite smart and had a disregard for his classmate's feelings. Additionally, segregation could best be viewed on a scale of popularity, where one could observe the students who played "the cool sports" (i.e. boys' basketball, girls' soccer) gathered together within work groups (and out of them in their free time and seating in class), and other students gathered in groups accordingly within their social strata.
This is somewhat different from World Studies. On the same day to which I was just referring, the students were even more segregated within these large groups. Oftentimes, the segregation was on the basis of race. There are a number of Black males in World Studies, who almost always group together socially in class, while in third hour, there is only one Black student, so this situation does not arise. Mr. Tree has said that were this an American history class, he might bright race more to the forefront. One day, a white student made a racist comment (which the group of Black students next to him thought was hilarious), Mr. Tree deflected and ignored the comment with no discussion about it. I asked him after class if he would ever try to use that as a teachable moment, and he said that in this case, he wished he had pulled the comment maker aside after class and discussed it with him, but that he had forgotten to. Mr. Tree added that were this the American history class he used to teach, he likely would have made a full class discussion about it, as race plays heavily into American history.
The comparative lack of social grouping in third hour point to the fact that first, all classes will simply be different, and teacher's must be responsive to the social environments in each of them to make sure that the class has a positive learning environment, and second, that classes which are obviously different, in this class with one spending two hours together, and with a different racial composition in a school where racial mixing (i.e. the lack of it) is a problem, both personal conflicts and friendships can grow quite strong and both hinder and help the learning environment, depending on how they are treated.
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