Importance Of Observation In Education

After spending four years abroad for my father’s work from the ages of 5-9, my family returned to the United States and to American public schools. When my mother correctly wrote on my registration form that I spoke Portuguese and French in addition to English, I was slotted to be pulled out of class for language testing. I remember being told to leave class, but not being told what I was needed for. My tester’s conclusion of my performance was that I “needed observation.”
As a child of a multi-lingual and multi-ethnic family, I had always regarded my culture and aptitude for languages as a source of pride. I grew up speaking both English and Portuguese fluently, and picked up French with ease while living in Belgium. However, it became a …show more content…
Needless to say, I was not especially enthused to have him assigned to my second trimester class. One week into the trimester, I noticed that he was handing out gummy bears, and that my first period class was getting progressively gigglier as class went on. Eventually, I gathered that the gummies had been infused with alcohol, and confiscated them. For the remainder of the trimester, I did little to reach out to Laquan. He was content to not show up to first period or come in late. He was never actively disruptive in class, and I was happy to have one less student to have to manage and drag across the finish line for my class. I allowed my initial impressions of him to dictate how I treated him, as well as the educational experience he received. I made assumptions about his character, and he made assumptions about mine from my race as …show more content…
Instead of projecting my own beliefs and misconceptions on to him, I met with him to discuss the ways in which he was and was not successful in Trimester 2, and how we could work together to make the new trimester successful. In our meeting, he was mature, respectful, and articulate in a way that belied my earlier assumptions. Just because he was a teenager who (occasionally) makes less than ideal decisions did not mean that he was incapable of being a successful student. It was clear that we had both made harmful assumptions about each other. I assumed that his behavior meant that he was incorrigible and not worth my time, and he assumed that I was teaching at the school to make myself feel good about “helping poor black kids.” Given time and effort, we were both able to push past our biases and assumptions to get into the real work of teaching and learning. Building a relationship with Laquan further helped him see me as something other than a “white savior,” something that I never wanted to be. Since the beginning of Trimester 3, Laquan has been my rock in a challenging first period class with extremely inconsistent attendance. He has worked hard to really be a student, and is proud to show me his work and the quality of work that he can produce. He has gone from sitting alone in the corner to teaching the whole class how to balance chemical equations on the