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One thing that I was not prepared for as I walked into the Northfield Middle School was seeing a bunch of moving bodies in a tight space as students walked to their first-period class. Teachers are greeting their students (“Good morning!”) and kids are popping in and out of the front office to pick up materials and/or masks (if they didn’t arrive at school with one). Super nervous, I introduced myself to Ms. Jen Hendrickson who works in the front office (she’s great by the way). Once I got situated, I walked up the stairs, turned left, and entered Ms. Hebzynski’s (hereinafter Ms. Hebs) classroom. Students looked at me and I looked back at the students. Mr. O’Keefe (the principal) was doing announcements via Zoom, so I used that time to look around the classroom and also introduce myself to Ms. Hebs. Since this was an Algebra I classroom, there were posters of the number line and Einstein along the walls. There were also motivational posters (e.g. Mistakes are not a failure but a chance to grow)…. and manatees. Ms. Hebs really like manatees. (In fact, a student asked if a manatee was a bigger-sized dolphin. She seemed almost offended and responded “No they are not. Manatees and dolphins are two separate things.”) After I introduced myself to Ms. Hebs, I walked towards the back of the class and sat down at a table which gave me a view of the students from the back. Already, I could tell that there were some “trouble-makers” in her class, but also some “studious” students. Two tables in front of me, there was a student who always had her headphones on. Learning all of their names may be a challenge but I’m already starting to recognize some of them.
Since school has just started about two weeks ago, some students were still giving Ms. Hebs a hard time. On Monday, there were school-wide lockdown drills. Some students weren’t taking the drills seriously (but I don’t think that’s just specific to them; I remember students not particularly caring about the drills or even challenging the teachers during drills in high school). Ms. Hebs is trying different strategies to appeal to her students. She seems pretty cool and doesn’t take slack from them which could translate to her taking them seriously. Also, she has warm-ups at the beginning of every class which I believe brings structure that wasn’t present during pandemic times. She voices clearly what she wants from them and if they didn’t finish their homework, she doesn’t take it back to grade. I am not so sure if the behavior of some of the students could be translated to “pandemic hangover” or just getting back into the flow of school (then again, school wasn’t “normal” last year so getting back into the flow may take more time than usual).
Ms. Hebs teaches 8th graders Algebra I (I remember taking Algebra in 8th grade). This means that the students are around 13/14 years of age. To Piaget, the students would be in the last stage of cognitive development, the Formal Operational stage. Algebra I introduces letters as variables for numbers and uses such variables in equations as placeholders; in a way, Algebra I would be a concept that these 8th graders should be able to understand at some point since variables can be seen as an abstract concept. Did I personally see students at that stage of development? Unfortunately, on Monday, a new standardized test was being introduced to the students, and on Friday, Ms. Hebs was unable to come to class due to personal reasons, so I wasn’t able to see a regular class. Fortunately, I was able to see a student working out the answer to the problem on the board. The substitute teacher thought that Ms. Hebs had solved the question incorrectly (she solved it correctly) and there was variation in answers among the students, so he had a student solve the problem on the board. The student, while interacting with the class, solved the problem, so I can certainly say that that particular student has reached the Formal Operational to some extent. Since I was limited to fully see all of the students’ capabilities, I am unable to support nor challenge Piaget’s stages. This upcoming week, I will be looking more closely at the students to see if they have all reached the Formal Operational stage.
Despite not having “normal” visits, I am super excited to be working with Ms. Hebs and her students. I personally have a brother who’s in 8th grade and taking Algebra I, so in a way, by tutoring this class, I would be “following along” on his journey through Algebra I. I don’t know what her typical class schedule is like, but I want to help her students develop “mental math”. Classes are short at Northfield Middle School (around 50 minutes) so it would be interesting to see how much content Ms. Hebs can “squeeze” into one class session. Will students understand her content? Will there be a lot of questions? I won’t know until this week, but I am ready to help in any way that I can.
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Chisom! I am also in an 8th-grade algebra classroom at Northfield Middle School. Yes, I also got to sit through the standardized testing. I think it is so great that you get to learn algebra (again) alongside your brother. I am still adjusting to middle school-aged students but maybe it’s easier for you because your brother is that age. I will be super curious to see your classroom experience compared to mine since we will be observing the same subject. I hope some of the students don’t cause too much trouble!
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