Asheville+High+School+(site+C)

Asheville High School (site C)

Eriel: First Vist: I went to Asheville High School with Katie. I don't know what school I was supposed to be scheduled to observe, but I was already in Katie's car, so I joined her. We met Ms. Jackson, and wow, what a woman! She is definitely not a principal I would have wanted to mess with in High School. She is intimidating, "talks fast, and walks even faster". We observed a science class for only 10 minutes because we had to wait a little while when we first got there. We were also shown the new cafeteria. It has SIX flat screen TVs on the walls. The only time I have ever seen a high school like Asheville High has been in the movies. It's huge, has style, and the teens themselves are so different from one another. Next time we'll get to observe a class for the whole fourty minutes.

(Eriel continued) Second Visit: This time around was a little more "normal" because we actually sat in two classes for twenty minutes each. The first was an Earth Science class for those who hadn't taken it before, and most of these students had come from other schools where they were "asked" to leave. The copy machine had been down on the day we were there, so the teacher (I think his name was Schultz?) didn't have an alternate lesson planned so he allowed his students to talk among themselves for the period. He spent most of the time complaining about that particular class because they were rebelious (paraphrased) and explained to us that he can't have a full lesson planned for the entire hour and a half because they can't focus for that long. The second class we went to was called AVID (am I right?) and it was for students who chose the college path and most have at least one honor or AP class in their schedules. Involved in this class are student teachers (?) or something like that, who help the students stay on track in their classes and try to ensure that they don't change their minds about wanting to attend college (I hope that doesn't sound too crass). The class is also a tool for the students to create goals and achieve them in order to "make it" to college. It would have been nice to have that in my high school!!!! Ms. Jackson had told us that the next visit will include us (as individuals) picking the class that we would like to sit in and that we'd be in that class the entire fourty minutes.

Taylor: (First Visit) The visit was a little unorganized, but it worked out just fine. We met with Ms. Jackson in the main office, she talked to us for a while, and eventually took to the classrooms we were supposed to visit. Strangely, the classroom we visited was Katie's sister's class. It was a basic introductory earth science class. Very little happened during the teny minutes we spent in this classroom. The kids were pretty obnoxious, and it reminded me of my earth science class in high school and how obnoxious we were. We weren't there long enough to really get a feel for anything. It was allright though, because it was interesting just to be in the highschool setting again.

Taylor: (Second Visit) This visit was a little more stimulating. We went back to Katie's sister's class for the first twenty minutes of the visit. Nothing very interesting happened... The classroom was full of students who were more interested in each other than anything school related. It seemed like the majority of the twenty minutes we were there were devoted to get the ball rolling in class. I learned in this class that sometimes it is impossible to discipline everybody in a class. When you have people throwing things back and forth, people whispering, people leaning back in their chairs with their feet on their desks…maybe the teacher had just let go. After twenty minutes, we went to the next class, which was even more interesting… The class was doing nothing…literally. The teacher was letting them have free time because they had completed their projects. This was a class of students who were behind in school. Every single person in the classroom was there for a specific reason. It was a makeup class for those who missed, failed, or dropped out of a previous earth science class. Only two kids were in there because they had come to Asheville high after their first year in school, thus missing the freshman earth science class. The rest of the students had failed the class, or been kicked out for some reason. The teacher talked to much about how much he disliked the class. It was refreshing to hear from a teacher that they didn’t like teaching a specific class. So they don’t love all their students like they say they do! :)

Taylor: (Third Visit) So this time was even more unorganized than the previous times. I dont really understand why Ms. Jackson was insistent on us switching classrooms. It just seemed to disrupt any type of useful observation we may have had. This time, we spent the first thirty minutes trying to find Ms. Jackson, because she had a different plan for us that day. When we found her, she was in a meeting and didnt come out for ten minutes. We ended up just going into a woodworking class and talking with the teacher for a while. Talk about intelecctually stimulating conversation... Eventually we made our way into a metal engineering workshop that was very...VERY cool. The students were designing metal structures and designs with computer programs, only to move into the workshop to manifest their digital creation. We saw their class project, which was to rebuild a complete, working model of a two-hundred year old canon. It was really interesting to see their shop. It was full of all types of metal working equipment and giant engineering machines.

Katie B: (First Visit) Our first visit was a little more of touring the school than actually being able to get into a classroom to watch. When we were placed into a classroom it turned out to be my sisters, which was nice. She gave us handouts of a sample way that she sets up her lesson plans each day. The outline contained notes on what she wanted the students to leave the class knowing, what they should already know coming into the class, and different ways that she could give the information to make sure that the majority of the students understood. After her class we had run out of time, so we got to get a nice look at the way the school was laid out before making our way back to school.

Katie B: (Second Visit) This visit was probably the most productive. The first class that we sat was Mr. Shultz, who was teaching Earth Enviromental Studies to students that may have had diciplinary problems at their last school, or who had transferred in and needed the credit. The class was a little rowdy since the teacher had finshed his lesson plans for the day and was giving them free time. I liked observing this class because the teacher was laid back but was still able to keep the class under his control. Though he did not hesitate to tell us that this class was probably one of the most challenging classes he had ever taught just because of behavior issues that had come up frequently. The second class that we observed was really interesting. It was Mr. Hughes avid class, and I really liked the space because they had tutors from UNCA there helping the students with homework and talking about college. As a graduate of Asheville High, it was nice to see a room of students talking about college that wasn't dominated by a white population. I have always liked the avid program, and I liked being able to see it work in action.

Katie B: (Third Visit) The last visit was a little hectic. Ms. Jackson was in a meeting for the majority of the time that we were there, so we didn't get the amount of time in a classroom that I was looking forward to. The classes that we did get to sit in on were the wood-working class and the metals. class. Both of these classes were interesting because they focused on a hands-on experience. In the end, I really liked being able to go back to my old highschool and look at it as a place to observe rather than to engage with.