Our SED 406 class took a bus to Central Falls High School and we talked about what to expect when we got to the school. En route to the school, I looked out the window and started to notice that we were driving into very poor areas filled with tenement houses and factories until when we pulled up to the school.
I noticed that the school had a very old and worn look to it. We then went into a conference room of sorts and talked to the principal about the school and what classrooms we were to go to. Then two of us went to a social studies class with a veteran teacher of 22 years named Mister Scappini. He told us that as a school that has had 95 teachers quit of the 115 hired since 2010, that he lasted 22 years seemed a major accomplishment to me.
I saw in looking around the classroom their were a lot of signs on the walls; for instance, "always bring a pen and paper." The furniture looked kind of old and worn. Students broke off into social groups when they got to class, and the teacher started the class with asking each student to say what their favorite color and why .
The class went surprisingly smooth and the students were participating. I also noticed that the teacher was mostly in the front of the class but also perusing around the class as some the students were starting to chit chat. As he went by, the students stopped and then paid attention again. The class moved on to other assignments from a work sheet they were given and computers were passed out to the students to research and get the answers to the worksheet while in class. Again, all the students were working on their school work.
I would say that this part of class was the most interesting as they were all doing school work and learning. I think that I was bewildered by what I saw, because of what I thought was going to happen at this school it didn't . I thought in my slightly older mind that we were going to a school setting nothing short of a old TV show from the 1970s called "Welcome Back Kotter." The theme of the show was the things that went on in a poor inner city school.
I think that the school is like a regular school. It had all kinds of things on the wall, including rules and regulations and events going on, school type projects and sporting, and after school and school activities that were about to happen. The school makes me
feel that I was back in High School. I didn't get the feeling I was back in my old Catholic school high, but a lot of the ascetics of the school were kind of the same.
I looked about the school and saw that the student body was very diverse and mostly from South and Central American descent, It seemed that the minorities at this school were Whites and African Americans. In reviewing this, I looked at the class, race, gender,
and disability of some of these kids, and due to their extreme poverty, the parents of these children would have them listed as ADHD just to get the $200 from the government to pay for the meds from what our teacher told us in the classroom.
My conclusion of watching these High School students and the way they dressed, is that they went out of their way to act and look "American," in an attempt to fit in and be just like everyone in an average Rhode Island high school.
PS: I have also posted picture on this page of some of the school rules on a earlier blog post.
2. What am I expecting to see when I get to Central Falls High School? I think what I will find when I get to the school is that we will find it to be a School going through alot of changes because of the administration switches' that have happened. I think that the students will be sizing us up when they meet and start working with us on weather they have to work with us in classes over the next few months or not as a new element in their classrooms.