Max Crimp

EDUC 202
Professor Buursma
A Story Of A Learner
The learner that I observed, who we will call Jenny, attends a small, non-
profit private school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The school accommodates students
with learning differences in grades 1
st
through 12
th
(http://mylma.org/index.html).
The school is located in a suburban area of Grand Rapids. In fact, during one of my
visits to the school, the students in Jennys class were discussing what type of area
their school was located. The students and the teacher all decided that their school
was located in a suburban area. There are many restaurants, banks, and small
business establishments in the area, along with homes and neighborhoods within
walking distance of the school. The school as a whole takes a number of field trips,
and I think that this may be due to the environment that the school is located in. The
school is on a busy road that is constantly filled with traffic. The surrounding
neighborhood within a two-mile radius of the school has a crime rate of 75.2 total
crimes per 1,000 people (MAPAS 2.0). Of those 75.2 total crimes, 38.7 were property
crimes and 18.8 were violent crimes (MAPAS 2.0).
The school itself is two stories high, and is viewed as very compact from the
outside. Although the school is two stories, it is not a terribly big school. The
classroom in which Jenny is placed is a 3
rd
grade classroom taught by a teacher who
we will call Ms. Gordon. The room is quite spacious, as are many other rooms within
the building. This may be due to the fact that the class sizes are quite small (Ms.
Gordon). The class that Jenny is in only accommodates four students, although it
easily could accommodate many more. However, since there are only four students
in the class, this allows for a couch to be placed in a corner with some bookshelves
that hold a plethora of childrens books for the students to read. This entire corner is
devoted to being a place where the students can relax and read. If there were more
kids in the classroom, there would be no room for this area. Right next to the
reading area is a small trampoline, which the students can use to release some
energy if they would like. Along with the trampoline, there are two exercise balls
that are also available for use by the students. The four students desks are spread
out with plenty of distance between them, but they all face the whiteboard in front
of the room. I wonder if the desks are spread out for a reason, such as to prevent
cheating, or if they are this spread out simply sue to the abundance of space in the
classroom. When looking into the other classrooms throughout the school, I notice
that they all contain desks that are spread out and they are never bunched together.
This must be a conscious decision that the school has made to keep the desks spread
apart. In the classroom, there are two windows, and both of the windows have the
blinds drawn. As I was shown the rest of the school, I noticed that most rooms in the
school had little to no windows; the ones that did, the blinds were also drawn. I
wonder if this was to keep the outside world from becoming a distraction in their
classrooms. I feel as if the classroom, and the school for that matter, is set up to
eliminate most of the distractions that may occur in another school. The small
classes could be away to build community and may provide fewer distractions than
a classroom with more students. The lack of windows could be a way to keep the
attention focused inside the classroom rather than the on the world outside.
When it comes to culture, I am not quite sure how Jennys culture plays a
role. Jenny is African-American, and she is adopted. I do not know if she was
adopted by another African-American family or not, but from my observation, I do
not see any African-American culture coming through in her dialect. She is very
polite, so I wonder is that is because she was raised in house where manners are
important. Whenever she asks a question, she raises her hand and says, Mrs.
Gordon? The other students in the classroom will just blurt out questions do not
wait to be called on to ask questions. Jenny is more polite than the other children in
the class, which I assume has something to do with her upbringing.
Even though Jenny is African-American, I do not pick up any African-
American Vernacular in her voice. She speaks very clear English, and she does not
seem to have any obvious speech impediment, as many of the students in the school
do. Last year, Jenny was extremely shy and would never talk to anyone. Now, she
talks more and interacts more with the students (Mrs. Gordon). She is still quiet in
the classroom, by far the quietest of the four students. She engages in some back and
forth banter with the other students, but never while the teacher is talking or
teaching the class. I wonder why she was so quiet last year, and why the slight
change this year? Could it be confidence issue? It could be an issue concerning her
self-concept. She could be worried about what the other students may think about
her, and she might be concerned about her own self-concept (Woolfolk, 2013, p.
300). I also wonder if it because she is the only student of African-American descent
in her class. If there were another student of African-American descent in the class,
would Jenny be more engaging and talkative? Jenny has a friend in another class
who also happens to be African-American. During breaks, she immediately goes to
her friend. Almost instantly, I begin to see a completely different Jenny. This Jenny is
talking, laughing, and interacting like any other student with their friend would. I
believe that Jenny is not comfortable speaking in front of her classmates, and I
believe that having someone such as her friend, in the same class, that she may be
more confident in her abilities to speak in front of her class. Another thought that I
have is that she may struggle to put thoughts together when she speaks in front of
the class. When she talks one on one with the teacher, or me, she speaks very
clearly, and it is not hard to understand her. Obviously she can speak clearly and
effectively, so why is she is so quiet? Students struggle endlessly to get their
thoughts into words and just as often to use words to construct their thoughts. And
their attempts to find thoughts within the words they hear or read can be just as
taxing. (Levine, 2002, p. 120). I think that this may be a problem that Jenny
struggles with. However, I believe that she struggles with this when she is not
speaking with someone she is comfortable speaking to. This could be because she is
more comfortable with her automatic speech than her literate speech (Levine, 2002,
p. 122). When it comes to speaking with her friends or a teacher in casual
conversation, she does really well. But when she has to speak in front of a crowd, or
if the conversation is forced, she struggles. I think that Jenny may struggle to put
thoughts words together when she is uncomfortable, perhaps due to nervousness.
Jenny is the only African-American in her classroom, and only 6% of the
students (14% below the state average) that attend her school are African-American
(http://www.greatschools.org). In a two-mile radius around the school, 21.4% of
people are of African-American descent (MAPAS 2.0). However, being the minority
within a school is actually quite uncommon among African-Americans. According to
Peterson and Hitte (2010), Some 73% of Black students attend schools where
students of color are the vast majority and more than one third attend schools that
have 90% of students of color (p. 494). I wonder if Jenny feels ostracized being the
only African-American in her class, and being part of the minority in her school and
surrounding neighborhood? Whenever she is around her friend who is also African-
American, I see a visible difference in Jennys ability to interact. Words come more
easily, as does the laughter. I believe that having someone who looks like her may
make her feel more comfortable and confident.
Jenny and her two older brothers, who are all adopted, all attend the school.
The cost annually to attend for one student is $10,000. Within a two-mile radius of
the school, 7.9% of the population is below the poverty line, and 12.2% of the
population in the two-mile radius is unemployed (MAPAS 2.0). I do not believe that
Jennys family falls into either of those two statistics. With two children attending
the school, I am going to assume they have the financial means to have their
children attend the school. If that is true, then the fact that Jenny and her brother are
African-American and living in a home that is not poverty-stricken is interesting.
15% of white children live in poor families. 74% of black children live in poor
families. 35% of Hispanic children live in poor families. 14% of Asian children live in
poor families. 29% of American Indian children live in poor families. (nccp.org) I
wonder what kind of school Jenny and her brother would have attended if they did
come from a family that has financial means. Would they become part of the 74%, or
would they still be fortunate enough to be part of the 26% that is not in poverty?
Jenny is one of two females in her class, which is taught by a female teacher,
Mrs. Gordon. Based on my interactions with her and watching her interact with
teachers, I conclude that Jenny is more comfortable talking with females than males
when it comes to authority figures. She constantly hangs by Ms. Gordons side
throughout the class period, and when other female teachers talk to her, she talks
back, making eye contact. However, when one of the male teachers talks to her or
asks her a question, she will not make as much eye contact, and the depth of her
conversations becomes much shallower. With the female faculty, she dominates the
conversation, at times even being the instigator of a conversation. I do not see this
with the male teachers. When I first started talking to her, holding a conversation
was difficult. It was tough to get any words out of her. However, as the weeks went
on, and as she became more comfortable with me and began to engage in deeper
conversations with me. I think that Jenny just needs to get comfortable with the
male teachers before she will engage in full conversation. I wonder if the barrier she
first puts up with male authority figures has something to do with her past. I dont
know too much about her past and male presences in her life, so I am not able to
make a valid hypothesis about why she build these walls when engaging with male
authority figures.
Jenny is said to be identified with ADHD, but I struggle to see the effects in
the classroom (Ms. Gordon). I do not see any sort of hyperactive activity. In fact, in
comparison to the other students in the class, she is by far the most mild-mannered.
When asked to do her work, Jenny works very diligently until her work is finished.
She often finishes her work before the other student in the class, and will try and
help the other students in the class, even if her work is not done. Jenny seems to
have a tough time keeping herself busy after she completes her work. When she is
done with her work, she will often walk around the room and look at the other
students work, pick out a book and then put it back, and follow the teacher around
the room. During a movie shown in class, Jenny seemed to be bored. She wasnt
watching the movie; she was instead playing with her pencil, looking in her desk,
and doodling on the back of her homework. I wonder why she diagnosed with
ADHD. To me, the effects are more similar to ADD. I wonder if Jenny is simply bored
by the material in the movie. At times throughout my semester, Jenny acts as if she
is not interested in the material being taught. She sighs and looks around the room.
One time, she tells me that she would rather do her work standing up rather than
sitting down in her chair. Shortly after that, she leaves the room to get a drink of
water. She acts restless throughout the times that I had observed her. However,
when I take a look at her work, she has usually completed the assignment correctly.
Although she struggled in school last year, she has made tremendous strides this
year (Ms. Gordon). Given all of this information, I think that Jenny may only struggle
with attention because either she is not being challenged enough or she is simply
not being kept busy enough. When she is given multiple assignments, she stays on
task and does not get easily distracted. The teacher is forced throughout the
semester to give Jenny lots of extra assignments just to keep her busy. Once, after an
extra assignment was given to her, she sighed and said, More problems? Cmon
She had previously finished the given assignment and gotten all of the questions
correct, so I wonder if she was struggling to see the point of receiving another
assignment given her previous success with the first assignment. Levine (2002)
talks about intake controls and their effects on attention (p. 63-64). It is a possibility
that Jenny becomes distracted after she has maxed out her intake for the day. She
could see that she got all of the answers correct on the assignment and then think,
Well, Im done now because I now know how to do this. Levine (2002) also talks
about satisfaction control (p. 74-75). Receiving an extra assignment could satisfy
Jenny, but after time after time of receiving an extra assignment, it no longer is
satisfying to her. Therefore, she has become bored by the extra assignments, and
this could be a reason she struggles to pay attention in class.
When Jenny was in the womb, her mother (who eventually was forced to give
her up) used drugs and alcohol quite frequently (Ms. Gordon). The doctors were
worried that this would affect her memory. However, it does not seem to be the
case. When the students went to the computer lab, Jenny was the only one who
remembered how to log on to the computers, and she was able to log every other
classmate onto their computers. When the students were talking about non-fiction
books, Jenny proudly told me, I remember a lot about non-fiction. She then
proceeded to tell me everything she remembered about non-fiction books. Quite
frankly, her ability to remember what she had learned about non-fiction books was
much higher than the other students in the class. The other students would get
questions wrong when Ms. Gordon would ask them about non-fiction, but Jenny
could answer them all. Ms. Gordon says that she has much better memory than the
other students in the class. This makes me wonder if this memory carries over to
other areas of her academics. I know that just because she has good memory in one
area does mean that she has good memory in another area. They may have been
very successful in those systems, perhaps by excelling in the memorizing required
by the curriculum. When they encounter a different approach to education,
suddenly they may struggle and feel as if they know little or nothing. (Woolfolk,
2013, p. 350).
Due to Jennys mothers problems, Jenny was adopted, along with her two
older brothers, were adopted by a different family. Ms. Gordon tells me that Jennys
two other brothers do a good job of trying to keep Jenny focused on school and
interested in learning. They do a good job of keeping her accountable, which may be
a useful strategy to try with her in the classroom as well. Perhaps if she has
someone there to keep her accountable to stay focused and engaged in the learning
process, she could begin to find interest in school and become and engaging
learning.
Overall, I believe that Jenny is a very intelligent learner. I believe that she is
socially very shy, and that she struggles to find the confidence to talk in front of
larger groups and male figures. I wonder what accounts for this behavior, and if her
mothers drug and alcohol abuse have any lasting effects on her. I wonder the
reasons for which she is placed in this classroom, and what accounts for her
shyness.
This is only part of Jennys story. There are many other variables that affect
her learning and her story, but I only chose to focus on the ones that I felt were most
relevant based on my observations and my interactions with her. Although she is
very shy, when you get to know her, she opens up and is intelligent beyond her
peers and very mature for her age. Even though she is placed in a special needs
classroom, I believe, based off my observations and the knowledge learned
throughout the course, that Jenny could possibly make the jump to a regular
education classroom. Obviously, this decision would need to be talked about
thoroughly by her teachers, parents, principle, and anyone else crucial to her
learning and education. However, I believe, given her vast improvement in schooling
from last year and her improvement in academic abilities in comparison to the other
students in the class, that Jenny could attempt a jump into regular education. This
may not be the best option. An inclusion system may be the right answer.
Unfortunately, I do not have the right answer or even all of the necessary means to
come to the right decision. But I wish Jenny best of luck throughout her academic
career and I hope it goes as well for her as she hopes it will be, because she deserves
it.
















References

Levine, M. (2002). A mind at a time (pp. 74-75). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Levine, M. (2002). A mind at a time (pp. 63-64). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Levine, M. (2002). A mind at a time (pp. 120-122). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Peterson, M., & Hittie, M. M. (2013). Inclusive teaching: the journey towards effective
Teaching (p. 494). Boston, MA: Pearson Learning Solutions.

(n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2013, from http://www.greatschools.org

(n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2013, from MAPAS 2.0.

(n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2013, from http://mylma.org/index.html

(n.d.). Retrieved November 10, 2013, from http://www.nccp.org

Woolfolk, A. (2013). Educational psychology (12th ed., p. 350). Boston, MA: Pearson
Learning Solutions.

Woolfolk, A. (2013). Educational psychology (12th ed., p. 300). Boston, MA: Pearson
Learning Solutions.