I visited Buffalo Gap High School, which is in Augusta County’s school system and just a few miles from my home. When I entered the school, my first impressions were of quiet and cleanliness. The place gleamed. In the corridors, I saw students in clusters, and they were all speaking in low tones. I saw a number of teachers standing about and many students had engaged the teachers in conversation. Staff members from the office were efficient and friendly in helping me get checked in and headed toward Ms. Suzi Mace’s room.
Before my visit, I had written to Ms. Mace, the chair of the English Department, and she welcomed me with cordiality and professionalism. Unknown to me, Ms. Mace had been my daughter’s AP Literature teacher five years ago. She has been teaching at Gap for 15 years, and it was a real pleasure to watch her conduct her American Literature class at the beginning of the day.
The classrooms I saw were large and contained 20-24 student desks with plenty of extra room. On average, the classes I saw contained 17 students. As I sat in Ms. Mace’s classroom and in the others I visited, what most impressed me was the discipline. I do not mean that the teachers were disciplinarians. The discipline I saw appeared to be on the part of the students, who, as a group, seemed to possess a high degree of self-control. I am accustomed to chatter in classrooms, especially at the beginning of classes, when students come into my room and the especially outgoing types begin socializing and don’t stop until I begin class – and too often not even then. So I was pretty surprised as I watched the rooms at Gap fill up. Most students went to their seats and pulled out their books and notebooks and waited quietly. Those few students who did speak with classmates did so in whispers! That shocked me. After class started, I continued watching the students, looking carefully for giggles, covert conversations, cell phones, distracting behavior of any kind or in degree. I saw none.
Again, the teachers were not tyrants; they were friendly, smiling, helpful people. The only unusual behavior I saw was that of the students, individually and collectively, who were orderly, attentive and respectful. For example, when the teacher asked that they open their books to 346, there was no delay, hesitation or confused whispers. Every student had his or her textbook and opened it to the correct page after be asked to do so once. Every student followed along and took a turn reading when asked without having to be shown or told where the previous reader had left off. When the teacher asked the students to complete a worksheet or respond to a sentence on the board, they did so without any extracurricular conversation.
The students I saw did not seem to be gloomy automatons. They seemed happy and normal. Many willingly offered comments during group discussions. In Ms. Shields’s Advanced Composition class, students worked together in small groups, and from what I could see they stayed on topic. In the classes I observed and throughout the parts of the school that I visited (library, computer lab) and during the changes of classes, I neither saw nor heard any student speak above a normal tone of voice.
I was only in the school building for a small amount of time, so I have no idea what goes on in Buffalo Gap High School on a daily basis. I do not know if what I saw was anomalous or whether it is the result of a culture that seems to expect a certain type of behavior. I do know that what I saw in those classrooms was very appealing to me as a teacher, and inspired me to continue to help students in my classroom understand the idea of respect for the group and for the work of the group.
No comments:
Post a Comment