Field Blog Shaker Heights High School

Before attending our class trip to Shaker Heights High School, I was not very confident that I wanted to teach high school. There were some concerns and questions that I had, mainly regarding how to run a class in a way to keep 18 year olds engaged. I was pleasantly surprised with what I observed. The kids generally seemed respectful and intrigued by what the teacher had to say. The first class I went to was a senior sociology class, and the second was a freshman english.

When I first entered the sociology class, I received weird looks from the students because they didn't understand why I was there.  But after the teacher introduced me, the students were welcoming and understood why I was there.  They were playing a Jeopardy game preparing for a test the next day.  I was generally surprised by the amount of participation coming from the class.  I like the way the teacher formatted the class because they were all having fun and learning at the same time.  

The second class I went to was freshmen English.  I was dreading it at first because I never liked English.  The teacher had the student engaged because they were reading a play, Hamlet.  I learned a lot from this teacher because she made every single student read in order to receive credit.  There were no students talking or fooling around in class because they all knew they had to participate at some point.