First Week at Northfield Middle

[Anonymous]

Thursday April 8, 2021

Today was my first day at Northfield Middle School, just a 12-minute bike ride from Carleton. I got up at 6:30AM to get some coffee, get ready for school, and bike over at 7:30AM. I arrived at campus around the same time that the students were getting there, so I was able to walk into the campus with other middle school students next to me. I had no idea where I was going, so as soon as I saw an adult, I asked them, “Where is the main office?” They, nicely, pointed me to it and I was able to get the directions to Ms. Rose’s classroom. I was told that it was on the 7th-grade wing and gave me clear directions. As I walked, I observed the library to my right, lockers for students, and dividers on the floor so that students could walk to their right anywhere they went. After a minute walk from the main office, I made it to the 7th-grade math classroom of Ms. Rose, where I would tutor and observe the first and second periods.

I introduced myself to Ms. Rose and she then handed me the sitting roster for the first two hours so that I could familiarize myself with the names and the faces. Students slowly started to walk into the classroom and made themselves comfortable. They had “free-time” until the announcements came and the principal gave updates. So while the students waited, some students talked across their desks while others talked directly to Ms. Rose. At one point Ms. Rose called an African-American student by her last name, and it caught my attention; they then talked about how the student could not come to her classroom during study hall because she had been loud the day before. The student tried to negotiate with Ms. Rose, but the teacher was persistent with her answer. After this interaction, I asked Ms. Rose if she called students by their last name, because I was unsure, and she stated, “I only call them [the students] by their last name when I have a good connection with them, and we understand each other. You don’t have to worry about that.” I understood that and moved to the back of the classroom as students came in and announcements started. Mr. Gelineau, the principal, then gave the announcements and talked about canceling after-school activities due to the weather, and proceeded to discuss what was going to be served at lunch — students were indifferent about everything.

The announcements finished and Ms. Rose then said, “As you can all tell, there is a new body in the room,” and proceeded to allow me to introduce myself to the class. As I told them that I was a Sociology/Anthropology major, they looked astonished because they had never heard of the words, so I had to explain to them what I studied and how I planned on using my knowledge post-Carleton. After my introduction, Ms. Rose started the math class with a warm-up from what they had learned the previous day. She gave them less than five minutes to answer the question and asked random students to answer the questions. She then started her lesson for the day, which focused on finding the area of a circle and how students should incorporate the lessons learned from the circumference of a circle lesson to understand the new concept. However, a lot of students in both classes did not know their formulas. Ms. Rose then reminded students of the formulas and how they worked, then she proceeded to ask every student to give her the formula of either or. However, some of the students still did not understand the formulas as they were asking me what numbers they should plugin on their numbers.

Both of the classes were pretty similar, however, the second class was quieter than the first class, but Ms. Rose had warned me about this happening. The lessons for both classes were also the same, where not one thing changed, just the students in the classrooms. Another thing that remained the same was the demographics of the classroom. The majority of the classes were white, and only 2-4 students of color were present. There was no discussion of this, nor did I think it was appropriate to ask Ms. Rose about it. One thing that did catch my attention was that during the second-period, a Latine student asked me for help and at first was shy. However, the more that he asked for help, the more comfortable he felt with the formulas and was able to finish his work faster — for sure made me feel comfortable being in the classroom.

Given my observations, I do have to say that the students are in their Formal Operations stage, as they are able to recollect what they have learned from previous classes and former math courses to do their own work. They were able to plug in numbers, recall their square roots, and do their homework independently. If they had questions, they were fairly simple to me or Ms. Rose, but the questions allowed us to see how much the student understood. The main way to see how much they had remembered was through the warm-up, which allowed students to ask more questions for a recap and also do individual work. I, personally, do not think that any student is behind on the stages, but time will tell me as I continue to go every week.

• This topic was modified 2 years, 9 months ago by Tonja Clay.

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