Highland high school experience

Day One

The first day of the field experience went well; I noticed a few things have changed since I was in high school.  The students are always on their phones, all day long! The students are also a little disrespectful to teachers, when I was in school when a teacher said something we listened.  Maybe it was because I was there and they were showing off, the host teacher Mrs. Bowman said they are usually like that though.  I was very surprised the way the students talked back and how much they were on their phones.  If I taught at the school I would go to the principal and explain a rule about cell phones needs to be in place.  First period I was in a health class with all juniors with a few seniors.  The class was watching the video/audio of their projects on mental illnesses. They used a program called photo story, this was a slide show they made with a recording of themselves in the background.  This was very interesting and I liked the project idea.  The students had to write every illness’s definition down as the projects were played; this was going to be collected for a grade later in the week.  Some students did not even write or watch the slide while other watched and took notes.  I observed four health classes; each class was watching their projects.  Every class a student was talked to about their cell phones, sometimes multiple students. The students did the reports on illnesses like Clinical depression which is a mental disorder characterized by all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self esteem, by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities.  Another example would be Bipolar, mood swings, periods of very good or irritable mood depression.  Seasonal affect disorder, which is types of depression throughout a season, usually winter.  Other illnesses the students did their projects on are, anti-social disorder, borderline personality disorder, schizophrenia, dependent personality, narcissism, histrionic personality disorder, dementia, amnesia, autism, ADD and hypochondrias. The periods I observed the health classes were 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd and 7^th. 

            During my free periods I went to the main office and got a copy of the student handbook.  I asked Mrs. Bowman to print a copy of a lesson plan which she did.  I also asked her to print out of the grading policy of physical education and health. I am trying to do as much work in the begging so I do not have much work at the end of the week.  I felt I did a lot of work for the first day; I am on the right path.

            8^th period I finally had a physical education class!  I was very happy to get out of a classroom and into a gym.  The students were finishing up fitness test and picking new sports to play for the upcoming classes.  The fitness testing was on sit-ups, curl ups and a pacer test. The grading sheet I copied also had pull ups and mile run on there, but I don’t know if they were actually tested on those.  After the students picked their sport it was free play basically, students grabbed basketballs and footballs and played.  The teacher walked around and tested the students who still didn’t test their fitness.  I played horse with a student for awhile, and then played knock out with a bunch of students.  We were having a great time! I noticed the students were much better behaved inside the gym then inside the classroom.  All the students enjoyed a new face and were asking me questions all day long, they really like young teachers. The class flew by and before you know it the bell rang and they had to go change, I talked with my host teacher and she told me a lot of students do not like to dress out.  She pointed to a student on the bleachers and explained he is one that never dresses out.  I knew I had to do an interview with a disengaged student and I asked Mrs. Bowman if I could ask him a few questions.  While the other students were changing I was interviewing the student on why he doesn’t like to change. The interview went well and I felt accomplished. Tomorrow there are three physical education classes so I am excited to be in the gymnasium more.    

-Albert A. Mercado