School context assignment

On this day, May 22 2008, I went to Robert Manley Middle School for a classroom visit. The school is located in Providence, RI. Upon arrival at the school at 12:15 pm, I was struck by the amount of trash around the building. I reported immediately to the main office where I introduced myself to two secretaries and told them the purpose of my visit. One of them called Mr. Doc, a sixth grade teacher, on the phone. They handed me a visitor badge, and a few minutes later, I was in his classroom. Mr. Doc and I talked briefly.
There were fourteen students present; four of whom were girls. They were noisy. From what Mr. Doc told me, the students were supposed to be doing some assignment: Reading-comprehension. But some were walking around, while others were talking loudly among themselves. One student was lying on the floor, making all kinds of noises, another one was lying on a table, in the back of the classroom, listening to what looked to me like an I-pod. In short, nobody was doing the assignment, except for one boy, who was sitting quietly at his desk, busy working. Nobody was listening to the teacher's instructions. Some students even left the classroom without asking for permission. Some would slam the door on their way out. When the teacher wrote their names on a board so he could call their parents and tell them about their behaviors, some would go and erase their names. I was in this classroom from 12:20 to 2:30 pm. And the teacher spent the entire time disciplining the students instead of actually teaching them. The teacher seemed very professional, and was trying to do his job the best he could. I asked him whether he was a special education teacher, and he answered no, and said that he could use some help from a teacher's aid. I asked him if he wanted me to work with a particular student and he stated that I could walk around the classroom and see if there were students who needed help. So I did as he said. I approached the most boisterous student in the classroom. He was banging his desk. I asked him if he needed some help with the assignment? He ignored me and kept hitting the desk with his two hands. I told him to stop the noise because other students were trying to concentrate on the exercise. At that moment, he got up and went to play with the air conditioner, in the back of the classroom. Mr. Doc saw him and put him on a time-out in one corner of the classroom. From there, X made more noises. Mr. Doc picked up the phone and said that he was going to call his mother. At this point, X stopped the behavior. Later on, Mr. Doc informed me that the student was on medications, but that he refuses to take them. A few minutes later, I was able to work with this student, and he did finish the exercise.
The classroom was set up this way: all the students'desks were facing the blackboard. But the teacher told me that some times they can move them around, depending on the activities they are engaged in. There was a 32" TV and a projector next to the blackboard. There were a CD player, and a computer on the teacher's desk, and a printer in one corner of the classroom. There were pictures of some American heroes and athletes on the walls. More pictures that students drew. There were some essays taped on the walls as well. Book cases and containers full of books could be seen in the back of the classroom. Some of the books were about Spanish Americans, Asian Americans and African Americans. In my opinion, this is intended to celebrate the ethnic diversity in this school. In fact, 61% of the students are Hispanic, 22% are African Americans, 10% are Asians, 6% are Whites and 1% are Native Americans. The total population of students receiving ESL/bilingual education services in this school represents 17%.
In this particular classroom that I would visit twice a week, the teacher worked with all the students. No one was marginalized. Mr. Doc teaches English and in my opinion, he has the materials or tools he needs to perform his job properly; that is to say: books, dictionaries, movies, books on CD, blackboards, projector, and a printer. The students are allowed to use the dictionaries to look up words, any time they want to.
As far as pedagogy is concerned, I learned that after the students read a book, the teacher will some times play a movie related to the story they read about so the students could better understand it. The books on CD that i mentioned before, is another teaching style in this classroom, and some students seemed to be enjoying this technology. The students are working on project right now. They made up some groups, to work on a play that they are going to show next week.
From the way the students interacted with the teacher, I am under the impression that they see him as a friend, and not as an authority. Most of them were not respectful toward him and this was illustrated by the way they left the classroom without asking for permission. They will get in his face and start yelling as if he were a child. In her article "Other people's children", Delpit would like teachers to be explicit with students in their teaching. Watching Mr. Doc teach, I don't think there is anybody out there, more explicit than him. Indeed, he said things as he saw them. The students did not seem to get it right then, but maybe they would some day.