Before I came into the classroom Ms. Salem briefed me on how things worked at the school. The reason that the middle school starts so late is because the buses go to the primary and intermediate schools first, which allows some middle school students to make sure that their siblings get to school safely, and then the bus comes to get them. Then the middle school students don’t get out of school until 3:50 because there are no after school programs offered at the middle school, but there are at the primary and intermediate schools, and so when the middle school students get out of school they are home when their younger siblings come home from the after school program. She also told me that things might seem a bit crazy because they are trying to do this program called Making Middle Grades Work, and so on that day they would have “Advisor/Advisee time”. Ms. Salem said that it was new and that some of the activities they have to do with the students are not developmentally appropriate. We will see.
8:40 AM The morning announcements and Pledge of Allegiance comes on the Smart Board and is done by students. They have a Veterans Day Video on in honor of Veteran’s Day. After the morning announcements, Channel One News comes on and it also has a segment on Veterans. “Sarah can I get some water?” I guess that sometimes they call her by her first name, but not all the time because later in the observation I heard some students call her Ms. Salem.
Physical Environment: The students sit at several lab tables arranged in different shapes. Towards the back of the room is where the boys sit at 4 black lab tables arranged in a square, and the girls in the front of the room with 4 black lab tables arranged in an open square of some sort. Some boys and girls and intermixed between the front and back of the room, but Ms. Salem told us that she stands in the back and talks and she talks loud and boys do better with that loud voice keeping them on task; whereas...