and I'm in love...

I wanted to make sure to post this after I observed at the highschool and before I went to the middle school. In case for some reason my opinions changed, I wanted to at least have a record of my euphoric opinions at the highschool.

So after I blogged yesterday, I went to grab my car. The hostel said that there would be free parking, but they didn't mention that the lot would be a few blocks away. I'm not sure that would sit well on the advertising perhaps. Oh, and I had already showered and was dressed, and it was pooring rain. So I bartered with the front desk guy for an umbrella and headed down. Then I got some breakfast and sat with the English girl. I really should learn her name.

Then, I was off. After getting lost probably twice, I made it to Oakland Tech, parked at the Burger King accross the street and ventured inside. I was impressed already by the magnitute of the school. It reminded me of the school in 10 things I hate about you, although obviously not that grand. It looked like a capitol building or something. So, I walk in and head to the main office when a gruff female voice asks me "what's my business here". I apologize for walking past her and sign in. I tell her that I'm going to see Mr. F but I'm not quite sure where the room is. A female student overhears me, welcomes me to the school and says "hold on, I'll go find out where the room is and walk you up myself." I'm even more impressed. So as the two of us walk up, we spoke. She explained to me that alot of the Oakland highschools have different specialties. Obviously this one was technology, but there were others for engineering, education and some others. I'm not a detail person. I assume she is a senior and ask her, she says she's a junior. I ask her hesitatingly if she has any plans. She says, she is graduating and wants to be a pediatrician. I'm incredibly impressed at this point. Not many juniors in general, let alone juniors in this type of population know what they wanna do when they grow up. So as we are walking, there are a group of guys talking and whatnot, and one is telling some story and a few really bad sware words come out of his mouth. I look at him, half smirking and half incredulous but keep walking, as I hear him say "I am soo sorry, I did not mean to disrespect you like that." At Shen, if I would have caught students saying words like that, they would have either ignored me, or apologized only to avoid punishment. This student apologized knowing I had no authority to punish. I'm floored.

So I walk in, late, to Mr. F's room and sit down. Of course I'm the center of attention as some of the students are already trying to "hook me up" with the teacher, who is young and white. Oh, by the way, in the entire 5 classes I observed not a single student was white. Most were black, a few hispanic and the rest some type of Asian decent. Anyways, so the class is moving sort of slow. Mr. F tells me there are supposed to be nearly 30 kids in this class and I see about 16. It's world history, 10th grade, but some of them are repeaters. The period is 57 minutes long and about 30 minutes in the fire alarm rings. Instead of going outside(it was cold and wet) we stayed inside, knowing it was just a drill. We re-enter the class. 5 minutes later the alarm goes off again. 1 of the students begin to head to the door, while two of them shout out "we know its fake, why don't we just get through this stuff instead." If there is a word beyond floored to describe myself, please insert here. I was amazed, if nothing else.

2nd period was smaller and also 10th grade. They were so quiet it was ridiculous. 3rd period was 11th graders. Mr. F told me there was a marked difference between the two grades. He said the first visible difference is that most of the students show up. In 10th grade they can't drop out legally, so they just don't go to class. The 11th graders were present and active. I mean they weren't nerdy about it, but when asked for opinions or participation of any kind, at least 5 or 6 of the students give it freely. They really respected Mr. F, and me. Every class that Mr. F introduced me too, waved at me and was all excited to see me. There are 10th and 11th graders by the way, not 1st graders. 4th period was HUGE, nearly 30 students. They fought(with words) the teacher on a few concepts, but did so in such an elequent and educated manner. He said this class was being really good today.

After 4th period the whole school has lunch. I would think that it would be a recipie for disaster, but it works. There are many local eating places nearby, and it seems that the lunch crowd coming from the school sustains them. After buying some pizza, I go back to Mr. F's room where he has about 10 some odd students hanging out, eating and enjoying themselves. Walking by the other classrooms in the hallway I found the same thing happening. These kids really seem to care about school and like their teachers.

5th period he had off and we chatted for a while, until a student came in, who had gotten kicked out of his class, and came into Mr. F's room just to talk. He was telling us about all the jobs he had, and that because his "auntie" works at the movie theatre, he has been able to move up to assistant manager. He also had fun shoes on.

6th period, it seemed about 5 students showed up to. They were similar to 2nd period in their lack luster, but they got through the material and were participatory when necessary.

Overall, I was extremely impressed. On a whole the students have a passion. They seem to want to learn. Mr. F did tell me that many of the students are not passing, and he has done things like lesson homework loads and whatnot, to try to keep them afloat. What I saw though, was kids who are overall respectful, and kids who care. They all seemed to get along with each other, and they all seemed to get along with the security guards posted around the school, and the teachers. Many of the students seemed to have like "work study jobs" in college, working at the desk, helping out with attendence. My two biggest fears about working in this population; safety/violence and no respect for others was not true in this setting. Mr. F told me that this school was one of the better ones, and that "Oakland High" was not as high performing as this school. Honestly, I don't need straight A students to wanna teach there, I want students who want to learn but don't have the proper resources, and who have respect for others.

After school I came back to the hostel to change and then walked around the wharf area for a while. I ate at a Mexican restaurant bymyself. That was an interesting experience. I came back, got hit on by an old guy, did some reading and then ran into my English friend again. We spent the rest of the evening together talking, drinking tea(i'm sick, I had tea twice today), and we tried to watch the episode of grey's anatomy from last night on her laptop but alas it hadn't been posted yet. So we are going to try tonight.

Ok, breakfast time and then off to see the middle school.