I have one of my first opportunities
to work with high school students to gain experience in my lifelong endeavor to
teach, learn with, and inspire future high school students as a teacher. I was
given the amazing assignment to work with the students at Central Falls High
School in my home state. As with every good lesson, before we began my
professor asked me to write about what I already know: my expectations coming
into CFHS.
This was a challenging assignment
for me initially, in fact I even procrastinated for a while before starting it
(surprising I know). But finally I was able to start because I realized why it
seemed to be such a difficult task for me. I realized that I didn’t
actually have any of my own expectations. Suspending expectations is something
I've learned to do almost automatically in order to enjoy my experiences in
life more fully. So other than intense excitement and a bit of fear simply
because of the amazing new experience, I hadn't given the specific assignment
much more thought. I was hoping to see what students are like now compared
to when I was in their position. I was planning to use this experience to begin
to feel comfortable back in a school setting. Hopefully being able to observe
the lessons I’ve been taught in hands-on practice in today’s world with today’s
high school students. In addition I knew I would be getting great
experience learning in an area very different from where I spent most of my
school time.
The aspect of this new school
district also contributed to the difficulty I had with this assignment at
first. While I didn’t have definite expectations for my experience, in the back
of my mind there was a thought bubble filled with rumors, word of mouth and
opinions. CFHS didn’t have the greatest reputation as a "high performing
school" or as the most homogeneous and therefore "easy" student
body. I did have these biases looming in the back of my mind which are often
heard in society about any lower-income or heterogeneous, urban public school.
Negative aspects usually follow these ideas and for me these negative attitudes
are where I tend to overzealously anticipate the positives. I was hoping to walk
into this school and prove every bias wrong (inflates chest); or at least focus
primarily on the things I see going really well in this specific school
district.
So I suppose my expectations were
to see a "normal" high school. Perhaps one that has really fantastic
days and a hard-working team of students and teachers cooperating and truly
learning. But I also knew I would see some teachers who weren’t the highest
performing as well as some students who may not be. Mostly I was hoping to see
an incredibly diverse school community trying to enact progressive models of
learning. I wanted a learning experience in which I see success as well as some
setbacks modeled for me. Most of all I wanted a real-life, interactive look at
how a class functions. I wanted to see the good, the bad, the diverse and
special cases as well as the common and the similar. I was just excited to have
my first look at the way all these lessons stored in my memory actually operate
and take away some pointers for what I someday would like to (or not like to)
try in my own classroom.
