Well I must say that I am impressed with how much I can learn in just two days of shadowing in an environment like Garret Morgan High School of Science. I started noticing things from the second I walked into the school. Never have I ever had to walk through a metal detector before entering a school before. Once I was through, I came upon the realization that I was the minority. This caught me a little off guard, but it didn’t affect me too much. Over those two days I realized how little some teachers cared about the students. If you are in it for the money, then you might as well get out of it. It’s just not fair to your students that way. The students had control over the teachers, but it didn’t help that the teacher didn’t really enforce much discipline. Only the F-word was silenced, and everything else was pretty much allowed to be said. Another thing I noticed was the copyrights of the history books. They were all written in the 1990’s, with the exception of the AP Government books, which were written in 2005 or later. When I asked about this, Mrs. Craig said that the High School was only two years old, so those books were brought new. She also added that due to funding, it may be a while before they get new books.
Diversity is a beautiful thing. On my first day I heard two African-American students talking and the girl called the boy a nigger. When he just laughed and said “well, that’s what I am” I was slightly surprised. Later I got to talking to those same kids and asked about it. He simply said that it was fine when another black person called him that, but if a white person called him a nigger, he would punch them. Anything that is said all matters where and who it comes from. I appreciate diversity on the highest level because everybody has their own story to tell. When I talked to the same kids, I asked if you feel like the teachers know your background enough so that they can relate to you. They said no, and that teachers shouldn’t get all up in their business. They should just stay out of their liver except for school.
Everyone has a different perspective on their school. Mine is that this school needs some heavy funding for books and computers, and some new effective teachers. Others may see that the school is operating just fine. In a setting with so many different cultures, it’s hard to teach just mainstream things without throwing other things in with them. The school had an African-American History class, which I thought was interesting. I never had that in High School.
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