Where I observed: Mrs. Smolund’s art classroom at Roosevelt High school

What was the age group? 9-12th

What was the main focus of the classes? The classes I observed were mainly ceramic based, however one class was an advanced art class where they could incorporate multiple mediums of art.

Past readings about how schools are architecturally the same as prisons became abruptly apparent when I first stood in front of the building, from the sheer size of the building to the way the hallways towered over you as you walked through them.

While I had been in a public school myself our school was spread out more horizontally as opposed to vertically, which had made it unintimidating.

Before this class, I had not known of the negative stereotypes surrounding the school and its students. Because of this, I had only been taken aback by the size of the school and by the time I had learned of the past reputation of Roosevelt I had already gotten to know that those allegations were false.

Reality
While the building itself was very intimidating for me, I found the teachers to be the exact opposite. The staff was always very friendly and on my first day, they helped me find the room I would be a part of for the following weeks.

While the hallways are extremely large, the amount of posters and signs as well as art in the art hallway made the school seem very open and welcoming of all students. Many of the posters and signs are hand made by the students which I feel is more effective that putting up random posters because they will mean more, especially to the students who made them.

* How to find positive solutions and problem solve

* How to talk with students and anticipate questions they may have

* How to see things from another’s point of view

While everyone at Avalon was very productive because they were project based charter school, some students at Roosevelt would do the minimum or sometimes they didn't work unless the instructor came over and tried to help them.

Something that I also noticed was that the time spent at each of these schools differed which also made my experience differ. At Avalon I was in the classroom from 9 - 3:30 every Friday and because the classroom is an advisory, I saw many of those students for extended periods of time each week. On the flip side at Roosevelt, I was only there from 9-12:30 every Wednesday and since each class is only about 55 minutes I only saw students for that amount of time each week.

Another difference between the two was that where Avalon had a whole class togetherness atmosphere, Roosevelt had students who would be with maybe two or three others. that may have been because Avalon, the students had been together for longer because they were an advisory class as opposed to a class that was only together for the semester.