WHS: Third Observation

Today in my third placement within the seventh grade class at Winooski High School, there was a substitute teacher. The students within this seventh grade class are typically rambunctious, but under the direction of a substitute, the students were exceedingly disruptive. It is an interesting perspective to be a witness of a class of middle school students under the direction of a substitute teacher, rather than being the student myself. The math activity that the students were working on consisted of dividing a town’s land in such a manner that the students could represent and compare the amounts of land that one family/citizen has to another using fractions. The first class managed to stay on task pretty well, while the second class had a very difficult time focusing and listening to the substitutes instructions. This proved to be a challenge not only for the substitute, but also for the student aids, as well as the Saint Michael’s students.

Having been able to witness a classroom with a substitute, it presented me with some valuable insight into teaching. While I am visiting WHS, I am privileged with the opportunity to sit in on two different class sections. These two sections rotate once per hour between two adjacent teachers’ classrooms. Although I do not leave my assigned room, because of these rotations I am able to sit in on both sections. Oddly enough, the other teacher was also absent, thus that classroom also had a sub. While the first section behaved similarly to when their teacher is present, the second section had a challenging time engaging and listening to the substitute. I was wondering why the two different sections seemed to be so drastically different, but, at the very end, when I got five minutes to sit in on the other substitutes Humanities lesson, I understood why the students were so misbehaved. In my Adolescent Development course, we are routinely taught the most effective way to address and teach consistently misbehaved students. Kindness and understanding go a long way when trying to reach a misbehaving student, while being stern is also imperative. The substitute that I had the pleasure of sitting in with had these attributes, but the other sub chose a different path. This substitute chose to yell at students and enforce many rules on to them in a mean manner. This was the first real-world example that I was able to witness as to how ineffective these methods are. The students chose to talk back to this substitute, often doing the opposite of what she said. Although there is sometimes a need to be forceful, yelling at students is ineffective and promotes negative attitudes towards school.

Although patience may run very low when students misbehave or talk back, yelling at the students is never the way to deal with these issues. Students develop many negative habits from such teaching methods such as: a strong dislike for all teachers, a strong dislike for school, and a feeling that the students are delinquents and not worthy of proper education. Thus, the students were rambunctious in the second section due to being negatively disciplined with the substitute. One girl in the first section, before she even went in to see the substitute stated, “She hates me”. From this observation, I understand the right and wrong ways to address and further discipline negative actions and reactions within the classroom, as well as paying witness to just how ineffective the teaching approach of negative reinforcement really is.