Field Notes 3

For my third week of observations I decided to change the time of my observations to get a different sense of the environment of the school and to hopefully observe different patterns than I had seen in my previous field work sessions.. To accomplish this goal I moved the time of my observations to between 9:00 am and 10:40 am on Monday September fifteenth.

At the beginning of the third field observations began in the same location as my last two weeks of fields work, bow-staff high school but at the beginning of the school day instead of later in the day. As the school day began the majority of the students immediately went to their classes leaving the outdoor areas of the school empty. Despite this there were still many areas of the school that remained somewhat crowded, most notably the previously established oxygen building the building farthest from the awning area, the hydrogen building, and the building the building behind the other two buildings the carbon building. These buildings contained several students studying individually in the commons areas of those buildings during the time period immediately following the start of classes.

At approximately 9:30 in the hydrogen building a group of students from one of the classes in the in the hydrogen building came out of their classroom and began to read in the common area and in the courtyard area outside the building. This seemed to not affect the study patterns of the students that were already in the common areas who continued to study with minimal distraction. The students that came out of the classroom where not out for long and where told to return to the classroom by their teacher after approximately twenty minutes of reading.

As the time neared ten o’clock the several cars began to arrive in the parking lot most likely arriving early for the next set of classes. These student waited mostly in the commons areas of the various buildings but one group of students waited under the awning area outside of the buildings. At approximately 10:20 the first classes of the day got out and the hallway and courtyard areas immediately became much more crowded for about two minutes as the students went from one class to another. During this transition period the group of students that was waiting under the awning went to many different buildings instead one building as I had expected. This seemed to indicate to me that that group had known each other from outside of that class and was likely pre-established.  After the transition period there where two group of students waiting under the awnings, these groups appeared to be engaging in conversation and maintained their formation until I left at approximately 10:40.

After completing my field work for this week I had several questions about my observations however most of these questions were similar to the questions I had after the first week of observations. My main question concerning my observations is about the consistency of the behavior I observe and whether it is consistent or if there are no discernable patterns from week to week. Hopefully another week of observation well be helpful to discerning patterns.