Field Experience Reflection

In terms of inclusion and culturally responsive teaching, the best example was the visit I had

where the history teacher Mr. Morris taught a lesson to Mrs. Smathers-West’s class on life for
African-Americans during the Reconstruction period. He showed political cartoons and videos
about the KKK and sharecropping and also had the students attempt a Louisiana literacy test for
voting to show how unfair and confusing they were even for literate people. The students were
to write a paper that would apply in both classes. Booker T. Washington is mostly black and
Hispanic so the topic was appropriate and spoke to the classroom culture. As far as inclusion,
this area is my one point of contention with Mrs. Smathers-West, she has one student that was
diagnosed with ADHD but is no longer taking medication. He was generally no more disruptive
than any of the other students I observed yet she would constantly single him out by making him
sit next to her desk, away from his classmates, and was more prone to use proximity and direct
intervention to try to curb his behavior. I just felt that because she knew his diagnosis that she
was over-disciplining him and it seemed a bit biased and unnecessary.