Reflections on my first week in Mr. Dube’s English Class

[Price Nicholas]

I am doing tutoring in 9th and 10th grade English classes at Northfield High School. My first impression of Northfield High School was that it seemed like a typical public high school; big building, crowded classrooms and hallways, confusing room numbering system. I was struck by how similar it all felt to my high school, even though this was in a small town in Minnesota and I went to school in a city. I even felt the familiar feeling of panic when the bell rang and I still had no idea where the right classroom was. I am working in Mr. Dube’s classroom, which he has set up in a pretty standard way. There are probably about thirty seats lined up in five columns facing a projector screen and Mr. Dube’s desk. Mr. Dube teaches class from up here, and I was impressed with how softly he can talk while still having complete control over the room.

It was hard to observe any specific moments of pandemic hangover just from observing the class, but talking with Mr. Dube after class made it clear that this is definitely an issue. He explained to me that he’s had more absences from his class than ever before, and he gets a sense from these kids that the pandemic virtual learning made them realize how easy it is just to not show up. Additionally, he told me that his 10th grade class seems further behind in reading and writing ability than most years. He attributed this to the fact that last year they barely wrote anything, and definitely not a full paper, and that 9th grade is usually a big year for these students to get a foundation of writing skills and reading comprehension.

Piaget’s theory would place these students in the formal operational stage, and so far I haven’t seen much that would suggest students are behind this stage. My best opportunity to observe this was when I did some one on one reading comprehension work with a ninth grade student. Mr. Dube told me that this student had missed a lot of class and was really behind with the reading assignments. But when we actually sat down to read through the short story and discuss, it was clear that he had no issue synthesizing, interpreting, and forming opinions about the story. We even discussed more abstract concepts such as symbolism in the story without any difficulty. I think the part that this student had the most difficulty with was actually just reading, which seems to point to a lack of practice more than a deficiency in development within Piaget’s system.

There are a few things that I am looking forward to observing and learning more about as my time at Northfield High School continues. First, I would like to learn from how Mr. Dube so easily controls his classroom. Compared to my high school English classes, students in this class were extremely focused, and at worst just respectfully uninterested. I want to know if this is the result of specific methods by Mr. Dube, or is it just a lucky classroom? Also, I am curious about how Mr. Dube deals with the students who miss so many classes. I haven’t gotten to ask him specifically about how he addresses this with them, but I plan to ask him about it.

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