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Classroom Observation Reflection
I observed a third grade Math lesson at St. Stanislaus Catholic School in East
Chicago, Indiana. The class consisted primarily of Hispanic students (64%), African
American students represented 32% of the population and Caucasians totaled 4% of the
population. The teacher was a Caucasian female who appeared to be about 30 years of
age.
The class was well-managed and the teacher, Miss Kellett conducted the lesson
and herself well. All of the students were engaged in the lesson and Miss Kellett
respected each student’s participation, answers and concerns. I did not detect any
preferential treatment of one ethnic group to another. Other than having a tendency to
address and call on the students to her left slightly more often, Miss Kellett spread her
attention across the room and students.
Miss Kellett also promoted relationship building and respect for ideas of each
student by simply positively reinforcing students’ responses to her questions and asking
the students to work together on a number of tasks. Additionally, she had students
discuss with their neighbor answers and predictions they had concluded based on the
instruction. While students discussed their answers with one another, Miss Kellett moved
about the room, observing and offering encouragement to the teams. It appeared that all
students were anxious to share their ideas with their neighbors and truly listened to the
others response. They were truly engaged with each other and the atmosphere, as well as
the conversations, was positive.
I walked around the room and examined the various centers that were established
within the classroom. Given the heavy Hispanic population in the room, I genuinely
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expected to find materials in Spanish or representations of Hispanic culture in the
classroom. I found neither. All of the available reading materials in the Reading Center
were in English and seemed to be pretty typical selections (mostly Junie B. Jones titles).
There were some fun science materials available. I found the selections to be very
limited.
I had also expected to see some type of information or display for the Hispanic
celebration of Cinco de Mayo in the room, but there was nothing. As I walked around
the room looking for anything that represented culture I thought about the “color-blind”
teacher. Miss Kellett is an effective, caring and talented teacher. Given that, I expected
to see some unspoken sensitivity to the diverse backgrounds of her students but found
none. Simply by not having reading materials available to her students about or written
by Hispanic people, or even materials available in Spanish, I felt disappointed.
This observation was a wonderful experience and I am grateful that I was given
the direction to study the diversity and cultural representation of a classroom. It has
made me aware of just how easy it is not to address the issues of diversity in a group. On
one hand, not pointing out our differences and treating all students as equals seems the
right thing to do. On the other hand, by not representing or allowing the students to
promote what it is that makes them different from others seems an injustice. In my
classroom I plan to celebrate and promote those differences among us that make us
unique. By doing so, I hope to go beyond teaching tolerance and letting the students and
I learn about and respect those that are different.