New kid, New Enviornment

            I got to attend and observe a classroom at The Tube Murica Complex this week. The teacher I was able to observe was Mr. Boss, and the two classes that he taught were both Social Studies. Which he called his Democracy class. It was kind of cool to see that all the classes were 57 minutes long to keep the kids in the classrooms, and not leaving due to long classes. It was an interesting group of kids that I got to observe for both of the classes. I don’t know if they were acting differently because I was in the classroom, because Mr. Boss said a couple time,” What’s up with you guys today? You are all acting differently.” When I showed up the class was just ending and some of the kids in the previous class staying in the classroom because they had him again for another subject. Mr. Boss walked around a lot and joked with the kids, and actually talks to them like adults rather than high school kids.

            I wasn’t surprised by some of the kids I saw, and I liked the fact that there were so many of them from different backgrounds. While watching the kids. I expected to see many cliques, the really shy, and quiet ones, and the kids that looked like school was just a waste of time. Did I see that? Yeah, you could tell from them just walking in and where they sat, what kind of clique they were in. Even in a classroom like this? You saw the class clown, the girl on here phone the whole class, the one who answers all the questions, the bad kid, the turn around, and the one who has their head down, or drawing something rather than paying attention. What shocked me the most, that I wasn’t expecting, was how well these kids knew the material. They all were asking questions to keep them focused. It was a review day for them because they are taking a test next week. Every question that Mr. Boss would ask, someone would have the answer for him in a matter of seconds. I was sitting there impressed because of how well these kids could understand this information if you give them the right way to do it. To understand how they learn and help them enhance that way. I saw different versions of note taking from the different kids. These kids were funny though. They stayed on the subject, but some of the questions they asked, and the responses they had to each other, I couldn’t help but just shake my head and chuckle along with them.

            There was this stretch of the class where the kids were starting to act up, and get off topic. There were about six kids that were involved, and it wasn’t violent of anything, but they were just starting to get really loud, and started to talk in Spanish to each other, and was shocked me was the switch that they hit. Mr. Boss got on them, and the time it took for me to write down what I was, they all got real quiet, and got back to work. The head of the group was the one who kind of got them back to work. She was the one when walking in, I knew was not the best student, and looked like she never went to class, but wanted to change her ways, and she is well on her way to accomplishing that. All class period she was going along with the lecture, and would nudge her friends when they had their heads down, or were talking. I thought that was cool to see. I just kind of want to see how they work if they were to be in groups, how that would work out. Mr. Boss’s class wasn't uniformed, like he didn't make them sit in certain spots, he lets them sit freely as long as they pay attention to what is going on. There was no picking on a certain group, because they all had something to say during the lecture. Whether it was from asking question, to answering other students questions, and engaging in the discussions that Mr. Boss would bring up during the lectures. I was very impressed with how well they connected the basic concepts of government to the world that they live in.