Fieldwork Experience
At the beginning of this summer session I did not know what to expect. I knew that there was thirty hours of fieldwork required and it would be in Newark. I was not excited to be commuting to that area. Newark has a terrible reputation and the people who surrounded me made Newark sound like it was extremely dangerous. I wished that I could do fieldwork in an area closer to Montclair or in my town, Teaneck. By the end of this summer session I am grateful that I was able to go to Newark. It was a learning experience for me and I definitely changed my perspective on Newark and the people there.
The first experience I had was to First Avenue Public School for the class orientation. Once I arrived to the school, I was shocked.
…show more content…
Morgan-Smith was done checking homework I got the opportunity to ask a few questions while the kids were still reading. I asked her how she divided each group of kids. She stated that at first they were broken up by random, but throughout the year she broke them up by reading levels. I asked why two students were sitting separately from their peers and she informed me that they work better that way. One student had a hard time focusing when he was in a group. Once he was separated from the rest of the kids his work starting improving and he was more focused. The other student was bullying her peers. Ms. Morgan-Smith had multiple complaints from parents saying this girl was bullying their kids. She had to separate her because she caused problems in every group she sat in. Additionally, she had trouble learning. When the year began this student was at a level two in reading. After Ms. Morgan-Smith worked with her separately she was able to bring her up to a level ten. She stated that she still would prefer for this student to be held back and stay in first grade but it was too late. Ms. Morgan-Smith said there is a lot of paper work to fill out and it will not be possible to complete it in time. I brought up how there were many students in the class and she said there were twenty-seven students currently in her class. She had one aid that was barely present throughout the