Day five: February 27, 2015

Time: 9:15-10:40

7 hours and 5 minutes

       Today, James was not in class. Mrs. Clark is never surprised when this happens. She usually waits until about 15 minutes after first period is supposed to begin before actually starting class because students are often tardy to class. There were only about 7 people in class today which is relatively normal. Instead of staying in Mrs. Clark's room, she sent me across the hall because the students that she did have did not need tutors and were going to be working independently.
       In Mrs. Rook's class, she teaches math which immediately threw me off considering I'm an English major and Math has always been my weakest subject. She was going over some problems on the board rather than having all the students work independently on their computers because a lot of students were having some problems with the same questions. This was different for me because I am so used to the discussion driven classes in Mrs. Clark's class. Mostly, Mrs. Rook's was doing practice problems on the board step by step. Some students were paying attention but most were going about their online work normally. As a student myself, it always surprises me when students aren't paying attention to the teacher when they are standing up in front of the class teaching but in Classic City, it is normal because each student has their own plan of study and moves at their own pace.
       There were also a lot of tutors in class today which reminded of of the book that I read for my second book club, Americas Unseen kids:Teaching English/Language Arts in Today's Forgotten High Schools. I really enjoy seeing all of the tutors at Classic City like in the book I read but I wish that us tutors could work together to help out in classroom and possibly help teach but I understand that with the style of Classic City it would be difficult because each student is moving at their own pace so the lessons plans would not be beneficial to all the students.
       With James being absent as often as he is, it makes it very hard for me to strengthen the student tutor relationship but this experience has shown me how hard it is to help motivate students to want to come to school. It is also teaching me how to motivate students to do their work the best they can in order to create a better future for themselves.