My first day at ISHCA was great! I love the school because it has a very soothing environment. Students seem to like being there as well as the staff. My day started at 9:56 a.m which is Tina's first class (third period). Her first class is a Literature Honors class. At the beginning of class, they went over a bell ringer which consisted of grammar examples. All of them responded with correct answers so I can tell that there is understanding of grammar rules. Later, Tina passed out a handout that was meant for homework, but she permitted them to work on it in class. They have intellectual partners so they were allowed to work with them on this assignment. That took roughly 15 minutes. After the grammar lesson, Tina started reading out loud chapter seven of the Kite Runner. I remember her telling them that a very important and major event was coming up and that they needed to be mature about it. The bell rang, and it was time for their lunch time. I was with Tina during her prep and advisory. I got a tour of the school, and we talked about how it is to teach at a Charter school rather than at CPS. There were various things I liked about ISHCA such as the classroom sizes, offices inside the classroom for the teachers that share the classroom, and the resources they have such as the smart board.
During her advisory period, I was able to approach and talk to three girls. They are freshmen, and they told me that they liked the school very much. All of them told me that they like that the school is small because the staff gets to know them better. They think the teachers are cool, and they have high expectations for themselves which is rare to hear from high school students. They all want to be in the field of Medicine which I think is great because ISCHA permits them to obtain their CNA certificate if they wished to. Her same third period class came, but it was now Composition class (6th period/ 11:47 am). They continued on with reading the book out loud, but once we were approaching the rape scene, Tina let the audio play so she wouldn't have to read it or any other student. There were several giggles, and a comment such as " Assef is gay." Tina paused the audio and asked them what had just happened. The whole class was thrilled and stalled by what had just happened. I was glad that most of them were able to handle it maturely. After they finished the chapter, they practiced being in their Socratic seminar groups. The groups had about 4 students. Tina handed each group a question and they had a leader that read the question out loud to the group. After that, they had about 2 minutes to discuss the question. Tina had a timer set on the smart board and it rang when time was up. I thought it was a rather short amount of time to discuss questions about the Kite Runner such as on the rape scene. They rotated questions about three times and the same process was repeated. I looked around and everyone was engaged. Tina walked around and dropped in on several discussions. Tina was very pleased with this practice round of the Socratic seminar. It was time for 7th period (12:35 pm) which was exactly like third period. This period was a Literature class. They went through the same steps as third period. They did their grammar lesson and then started reading the book. I noticed that in this class there was more diversity. I saw African American students. There was a different type of environment because these students were more vocal than her third period. Also, since it is 7th period, students seem to be more tired, but Tina kept the same enthusiasm just as she had it in the morning. These students walked in saying, " I know what happens to Amir!" Tina had to tell them to not spoil it for everyone else. They seemed very excited! Overall, I really enjoyed my first day, and I thought about whether I would want to teach there or not. :)
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