The entire school was energetic and excited today. The Roosevelt High School basketball team had made it to the DC finals, and the entire school was ecstatic. I walk into the school, and immediately see students running down the halls, yelling “Go Roosevelt” and “Down with Coolidge,” amongst other more profane words. I get to Mr. Spike’s basement classroom and the energy is just as present down there as upstairs. I remember Mr. Spikes saying something to a student that remains very resonant to me. “If this school cared as much about academics as the basketball team we’d be set.” An exaggeration, but still says volumes about how teachers and the administration interact at Roosevelt.
Mr. Spikes got the second period class started with a lesson on adding music to a fake audio commercial. The students had fun with it, choosing music of different genres from rap, to rock, to in one student’s case, classical music. I helped the students manipulate the sound to create an audibly pleasing commercial. More comfortable than the first two days, I really started to jump into the teaching on this third visit. The students seemed more receptive to me this class, because I was no longer a stranger.
During the third period, I also became closer to the students, and got a more accurate view of how the students in the class interacted. Only two people were there on this visit, one of which was the girl who had been sleeping the week before. Her minimal effort continued, and she distracted others in the process. Their first assignment was to merely copy down a prewritten script on the computer. This process proved more difficult than I would have expected. A lot of the students I have been teaching, have little experience with computers, to the point where many of them had trouble typing simple word documents. I look at this as the new type of global inequality. I have had a computer in my house since the first grade. Before I could flirt with girls, I was given the ability to surf the internet and type word documents. Many of these students do not have these opportunities. I fear that as our society becomes increasingly dependent on technologies, including the computer, certain segments of the world population will be left behind. I am curious in whether this is the case here at Roosevelt. Before I’m done working at Roosevelt, I would like to pass out surveys to find out whether their family has a computer, whether they themselves have a computer, and for how long. I think this is a worrisome trend, because in the modern age, everything is done by computer.
Macbooks and Ipads might be a fantastic resources, but I think its important that we think about what effects will come from this “new age inequality.”
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