Field Post 2

The visit at Shaker Heights Middle School was great! We were welcomed with open arms by the students and teachers. The first class that we visited was Mrs. Lambert's Literature and Language class. Unfortunately, when we were visiting the children were doing silent reading time, but there was still a lot to observe. The kids were actually really well behaved for a class full of eleven year olds being told to read quietly. There was an aid in the class while the students were reading watching over them. The main teacher was out in the hall. The children were in little pods of four or five desks. There was two to four children in each pod. As reading time went on there were little disturbances like kids getting up or talking to each other. The next class we observed in was Mr. Knebel's math class. Mr. Knebel maintained a lot of control over the classroom. He had a powerful voice that the class responded to well. He asked leading questions about the problems on the board, helping the students come to the answers on their own. The students were very attentive. About half the class would raise their hands when a question was asked. The students were given ten minutes at the end to do a problem in their groups of four or five. Mr. Knebel made it a competition for the students which got them much more involved and then he went around to each group to answer questions and guide them to the correct answer.
When Ayers discusses building bridges, in my opinion he is discussing creating opportunity and new opportunity that one might not have felt was attainable in the past. The bridges are from old to new, from uneducated to educated, from unsuccessful to successful. In the section that my group was assigned in class was about Sal the teacher of an adult writing class. My group agreed that this class was a bridge for knowledge for these students. They had come from low income neighborhoods without much to show for their hard work. This class offered them the ability to change their stories, to gain knowledge, and this knowledge is a bridge to change their stories in their actual lives, not just in stories.
The bridge in Shaker Heights Middle School that is constructed is one between the students to other students. This bridge is one of understanding and acceptance. There is community circles once a week in each class at the middle school. The goal of the school is to make children comfortable with their peers, and like I've stated in the past I think the only way to truly learn is to be comfortable with your peers and teacher.