FieldBlog4: OHS

I began my field observations at Orange High School with Mrs. Cirino my senior year history teacher, and Mr. Mangan my sophomore year history teacher. I sat in on one American Century class, as well as two Global Citizenship classes, which is a senior course where Mrs. Cirino’s goal is to open the eyes of her students beyond the Orange community. As she repeated to the class, there is an “Orange Bubble” that the students live in. Orange is an affluent area where many of the students are blind to the world outside of the their own. Because this is a senior course, it allows for open conversation to happen that can lead to topics the students want to learn about. Mrs. Cirino planned a class where students would be in groups. These groups were randomly chosen at the beginning of the semester, and are meant to be permanent for the rest of the year. Groups stay the same so students feel comfortable sharing without having to speech in front of the rest of the class. A silent writing activity about ‘What identity means to you?’  kicked off the activity, and a video where students wearing colored masks to represent their cliques followed. Next came the more interesting part. Mrs. Cirino lead the class into a discussion that flowed so naturally and organic, but still touched on all parts of identity that she had outlined in the beginning of class. She asked questions like ‘what makes up your identity?’ When a student would answer, Mrs. Cirino would dig deeper into their response without pressuring them. For example, a student responded with, “What you believe in.” Mrs. Cirino followed up with, “ What, like your religion?” Her follow up question did not ask the student to explain themselves, but it gave them the opportunity to respond if they felt comfortable doing so. I found this captivating because her relaxed, genuine look of interest made the students want to respond. I remember feeling this way when I was sitting in the seats the students were in. This made me realize that wording and body language play a big role in getting students comfortable to share. I believe I would be good at this in my career as a teacher because I have a natural interest in how people think. This is why Mrs. Cirino’s Global Citizenship class is the type of course I would like to teach. I believe giving young minds the opportunity to think outside of their normal alignment is vital, especially when they are about to make a major step from high school to college.