Shadowing the life of an American Student.......

This is Dawson and Me with Macy

Today instead of doing my normal school routine I decided to shadow a student to all his classes to experience the life of an American student. It turned out to be an exciting and learning experience. The student whom I shadowed was Dawson, an 8th Grader ( 14 years old). He was handsome and had blue sparkling eyes.... He was warm and very respectful in his own ways. I got along very well with him within a few minutes.. The classes he had today was English reading (Honors), Mathematics, Social Science( History), Science, English writing, music and Bible Studies. 

  

Technology made the lessons easier to understand

I followed  him to all the classes and had great opportunities to observe different teaching styles of different teachers.  Different teachers had different styles in handling their students and all of them had the aura of their own… some teachers made sure the students remained quiet throughout their lessons, some had amazing group activities and made sure students were engaged and some had great ICT skills that they made learning so simple. One similarity I noticed among the teachers was, they were all using technology during their lessons and I am sure they were not doing it because I was there as the teachers were not aware I was shadowing Dawson and gave a surprise look when I showed up in their classrooms with Dawson, however they were very welcoming. They did not use any specific software, but exploited whichever software  or online tools which was free and available. It was easy for the teachers as these softwares/tools were not so complicated and made their lives easy.

Dawson, do not have fixed classmates, his classmates differs from one lesson to another lesson based on their ability and the previous year’s results, and the school do not have uniformed lessons as well. The lessons differ from one class to another depends on students’ learning ability. For example, If a student is in English Reading(honors) class, it means this class is for students who have higher level of understanding texts where at this level they learn to study literature deeper. They study  Charles Dicken's, Great expectations which is meant for higher level, where as the weaker ones will not study Charles Dickens but a simpler one which help to build their ability to understand texts better.

I did not shadow Dawson to his bible studies as it was conducted in a church nearby; in America religious studies are not allowed to be conducted in the school compounds as to respect and not influence students of other religions and it is not compulsory. They truly practice 'respect all religions' policy.

Different lessons at different classes

My day ended with a happy note......