School Context Assignment

Driving up Mount Pleasent Ave to see George J. West Elementary on my right I was kind of a shock to me in some ways. The first thing I saw was a chain link fence surrounding the play area where tons of little kids were running around and playing. I thought it was strange to have such a harsh looking fence surrounding an area where kids should be feeling welcomed and safe. I parked my car and was pretty early so I sat and watched for a few minutes. I noticed a lot of different races, but at that point I did not notice even one white child. After looking at the demographics I realized why. There were 58% Hispanic, 24%African American, 15% white and 3% asian. Walking through the plain, bare corridors I tried to remember what the walls looked like in my own elementary school. They were filled with artwork, pictures from different recreations, posters and probably more things that I just cant recall. But in these corridors there was nothing, not a stitch. As I walked into the office I was also kind of taken aback to see that every single teacher there was white, not one was a minority. Why would a school with such diversity not reflect that with their teachers as well? The classroom I was assigned to was also not as I had expected either. I expected the typical classroom of desks in rows with the main focus put on the teacher's desk and the chalkboard. However, instead of desks there were 5 tables with chairs spread out around them and an easle with a colorful rug next to it as the main area for the teacher to give lessens. The room was sort of cluttered, but not with anything that I viewed as important to these children's culture and race, more with posters of the classroom rules and ABC's. There were about five computers spread along the walls, but I did not see them being used often due to having too much work to complete. The computers, to me, seemed to be more of method to keep the kids busy if they finished their work more than a tool they need to learn to use in this day and age. Many of these kids probably can not afford to have computers at home so if they were to be able to learn the basics it would be a great asset to them. As far as cirriculum is concerned the only books I have seen used are reading and math textbooks. To me this shows that perhaps the school does not have the funding needed to provide more textbooks to help with these kid's education. Handouts are given out periodicaly with different reading activities on them. These handouts actually do correllate to the student's culture and race because some depicitions of people on them are minorities and not the typical images that I am used to seeing of white people. Another good thing that this school does to integrate learning with making the kids feel comfortable and not embarressed is that they split kids up into classes with similiar reading and math levels. I think this is a great strategy because 11% of the students in this school are English as a Second Language and if the kids were all just jumbled randomly into groups they would not be recieving adequate education and they may also feel alienated and made fun of at the same time. The pedagogy of the classroom appears to not be very structured. The kids are given enough work to be busy the entire time and not have time to get into "trouble". However during this time the student's socialize quite a bit and are free to walk from table to table if they have questions. The children also get up and go to the bathroom without asking first, which shows a sign of trust between the teacher and her students. This trust may help within the classroom to give the students a feeling of ease when approaching the teacher. I believe Delpit would not agree with the pedagogy in this classroom because I don't feel that the person who has the power, in this case the teacher, is really doing an adequate job of reflecting "middle-class values and aspirations". It appears that the teacher is more conerned with making sure there are no problems in the classroom and the time they are in that specific classrrom is filled up with work.
Some informal interactions I have personally witnessed is when the minority girls were playing with my hair. I believe they were noticing the differences of race and how it affects how one looks. An African American girl also asked me, "are there any black people in your family?" to which my reply was "no". She seemed so shocked at this revelation and it later occured to me that maybe she was not even really aware of my actual race and that is why my answer confused her. Perhaps I just assumed that she knew I was right, since I am white and I just assume that I never have to tell people what my race is, like McIntosh states in her text. One incident in the classroom that was appaulling to me was that the children were rewarded for good behavior with food such as crackers or cookies. After looking at the demographics and noticing that 76% of the kids at G.J.WEST are eligible for free of reduced lunches I realized how cruel it was to dangle food in their faces when maybe they don't have meals regularly and these little snacks are a rare treat for them.
All in all I do not think that this school represents the demographics of the community very well. I beleive that if the school was to take a little more initiative it would not be very hard to represent, celebrate, and honor the different cultures and races within this school.