Jace Flores Student Teacher Blog

During the course of the special ed assignment we had to do for Jen Phuong I observed a student of mine who agreed to be the subject of this assignment. The basis of me picking her was she can goof off quite hard in class and get distracted from doing the work, which seemed like a good sort of low-stakes thing to do this assignment about. The logical idea I explored is her efficiency with doing the work by minimizing her sociality as much as possible, particularly with her best friend. This was immediately observable when I sat in on her English class where her best friend or any other close friends of hers were not present. And what I noticed was a profound sadness. The joy and exuberance she brought to period 4 was nowhere to be seen, I don’t recall her smiling once. Now the idea mentioned above was right, she got her work done in the class exceptionally well and fast, having no distractions to hinder yet. And yet, it just seemed plain wrong. It was this observation that made me realize the importance of class not just being about getting the work done as quick and effectively as possible. It’s not worth it if the students are downright miserable (or at least look miserable). In my mind it became immediately more acceptable that the student in question have her moments of sociality and distraction, because it brought an energy of joy that was just as important to the class as her doing the work. Now obviously she has to be reined in once in awhile because there is such a thing as too much distraction, but there needs to be a balance because miserable working students is just not worth it.