Jace Flores Student Teacher Blog

I think the most important thing I observed the past couple weeks is the importance of establishing environment. Brian emphasizes the creation of a warm, inviting and friendly environment to try and balance the personalities of the kids with the expectations of work. Kids are given leeway to do some things many other teachers would not tolerate, such as talking to each other, putting their heads down, doodling a bit, and so on. There are boundaries of course to the limit of this and Brian makes this clear by asking the class to refocus if the level of distraction is too much. But in essence the kids are allowed to be themselves, which I think helps with building trust, teacher-student camaraderie and getting them to focus when the teacher wants them to.

Something that was interesting on a school level and seeps into all the classes is that Freire has a pretty comprehensive set of values and expectations that they really push. Many if not most schools have these, but Freire is interesting in that they are not necessarily lip service to get some brownie points and never actually do anything with. Freire is clear and repetitive of what it expects of the students and their education, with teachers incorporating aspects to varying degrees as they see fit. Some are practical things like no food or phones must be in YONDR pouches, while others are more abstract like be a mistake maker or be a self-advocate.

With the students I have observed some pretty positive things. The students are fairly well behaved overall (mercy on those teaching right after lunch), and I think a large part of that is the environment facilitated in the class. For example, kids I shadowed from one history class to a subsequent math class went from being pretty jovial to being stressed out and frustrated. The kids notably have pretty good critical thinking skills and are not afraid to diverge from each other in their answers to complex or nuanced questions. Can they be frustrating and very distracted? Yes, but they do seem invested in doing the work and doing it well, even if it is just for a grade at the end of the day.