First and Second Visits to School

Last Monday, I went to Carolina High School in Greenville County to start my Field Placement. I am with Mr. Mike Delaney, who teaches Algebra I B, Geometry CP, and Algebra II Honors and was the Greenville County Teacher of the Year last year. I started the day by standing in the hall with Mr. Delaney for about 20 minutes, where he was on duty and supposed to help with crowd control. He talked to me some about the school and told me that all three of his classes have 15 or fewer students in them. That day was the students’ first day of school, so we first went to the auditorium with the freshmen, where the principal, ninth grade administrator, and various other school officials spoke to them about the importance of staying on track and doing what they need to do to graduate in four years. After that, the students split into homeroom—which they only have for the first two days of school—to learn about some of the school’s rules and policies. Since Mr. Delaney is the head of the Math Department, he does not have a homeroom. I wanted to see what it was like though, so I observed Mr. M, who teaches Honors Pre-Calculus and AP Calculus.

In homeroom, Mr. M explained the forms that the students were given and covered some of the rules in the school’s handbook. I noticed some things about the way he spoke to the class that stuck out to me as things that I do not want to do. At one point, he was describing a woman as being very short and over 200 pounds, which I thought was a bit unprofessional and rude. Some of the students even made comments to each other in disbelief that he had described her this way. Nearly the entire time he was talking, students were talking to each other or had their heads down on their desks sleeping, but he never said anything to them about it at all. At the end, he finished twelve minutes early and spent the remainder of the time sitting in a desk without talking to students at all. He made it clear that he only teaches seniors, so he would not be having any of those freshmen in his classes.

Next, I went to Mr. Delaney’s Geometry CP class. It wasn’t as long as a normal class period because they had gone to homeroom, so he just spent the class going over the syllabus and explaining his expectations of the students. He even had them practice leaving the classroom and coming in and getting their calculators. He told me that he is a stickler for the rules and heavily enforces them. He also made that clear to his students and told them that he will try to earn their respect and they should try to earn his as well. After class was lunch, which I spent in the teacher’s lounge talking to two teachers about why they decided to teach and how they ended up in Greenville. It was interesting to hear their stories and ideas about teaching, especially since one of them had just graduated from college and is teaching for the first year.

The last class I went to was Algebra II Honors. Because Mr. Delaney is a football coach and a basketball coach, he knew lots of students from those activities and from previous classes. He knew most of the students by name in this class and many of them were excited to have him. He again discussed the syllabus, his rules and expectations, and had his students practicing entering and leaving the classroom. About halfway through the class, the bell for the second lunch rang, but he thought it was the end of class and dismissed his students. After a couple of minutes, he realized that they weren’t supposed to have left yet. I was very surprised that eight out of the ten students in that class came back. When they came back, the class started reviewing some things and discussed an assignment that would be due the next day.

I would say that my experience overall the first day was pretty good. It was interesting to see the special relationship that Mr. Delaney had with his students and to see his genuine interest in their wellbeing and learning. He must have known about half of the students who walked past him in the hallways, and greeted and shook hands with several of his students. However, he barely talked to me at all that day and did not even introduce me to his classes except when half of his second class had come back after being dismissed early. That really bothered me, but I didn’t know what to say. I sort of felt invisible. When I got home, I e-mailed him and apologized for being so quiet and told him that I would really like to be involved as he would like me to be. I did not want to just sit there the whole time like I had that day.

This Monday, I went back for my second visit. I was able to observe fifteen minutes of his Algebra I B class and the entire Geometry CP class. He talked to me a little bit more in between classes and let me look at one of his lesson plans. During Geometry, he gave them a worksheet on graphing that the students completed with graphing calculators in pairs. I asked him if I could walk around and help and he told me to do so. I got to talk to the students more and work with nearly every pair—there were only eight students in the class. I worked with one of the students one-on-one for a few minutes and was able to help her understand a problem through inductive reasoning. I really enjoyed my time yesterday and was excited that Mr. Delaney asked me to constantly be involved with the students, whether it be helping them with questions or making sure they are taking good notes when he is lecturing. I am very optimistic about how this Field Placement is going to help me as a teacher.