Second week at 79th street school

My second week at 79th street school was actually better than my first one. The students seem better behaved today except for a few outbursts of anger and talking. One of the most talkative students, carlos, was out sick and you could feel a completely different atmosphere in the classroom. The affect that the absence of one student has on this classroom was absolutley astonishing to me. The students were completely different when they did not have Carlos constantly talking to him. Since I go to my Learn and Serve placement at noon, the students are already starting to get burnt out from being at school. The whole time I am there they just want to leave and complain. At one point two of the students got into an argument and one ended up storming out of the classroom swearing and kicked the door open and ran out. These children all seem very angry. The teacher pretty much ignored the situation and let the counselors talk to him which I think was a good thing to do so that it did not interrupt the other students and the lesson she was teaching. I think the teacher does allow certain behaviors to be looked over because these are things that the students can not help doing. By not drawing attention to these certain behaviors, the students actually end up getting back to their seats more quickly knowing that the teacher is not going to give them all the attention. When it is time for the kids to work on worksheets, they have a choice of either working with myself, the teaching aid, or the teacher. They choose who they want to work with and where they sit. There are different tables around the room so they can get up and move to them. I think it is good to get them out of their seats and let them be able to decide where they want to work instead of always telling them what to do. This method of getting them to work on their worksheets actually works better than telling them what to do because they get excited to pick where they sit and who they work with. Then in turn, they get excited about the work. One thing that still bothers me when I am in the classroom is they talk about drugs all the time. Today they actually took a pencil and pretended it was a needle and put it up to their arm. It was kind of disturbing to see that a 5th or 6th grader even knew what that meant but it is definately opening my eyes to what is out there.