Context of Teaching & Learning Analysis: Bay Creek Middle School

Bay Creek Middle School is located in Grayson, Georgia–a large suburban city

about 40 miles northeast of Atlanta, Georgia. The school’s teacher and staff

demographic is majority white, with a student demographic that is majority Black,

Brown, and Person of Color. More concretely and according to a 2017 survey by the Civil

Rights Data Collection, the racial breakdown of Bay Creek Middle School is as follows:

56.8% Black, 17.7% White, 15% Hispanic, 5.5% Two or More Races, 4.4% Asian, 0.5%

American Indian or Alaskan Native and 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

I am conducting my Teacher Intern duties in a 7th grade Social Studies

classroom at this school. Students attend four academic periods per day, plus a

homeroom class at the beginning of their day and two connections/elective classes

around lunchtime. There are 28 desks in my class, but at no point throughout the day

are all of the desks housing a student body. My class sizes range from 24-26 students per

class, leaving us with about 100 students total. My students are between the ages of 12

and 14. Gender demographics are split equally between male and female students, and

you can witness this trend is consistent throughout my classes. The school year is 180

days long and the school day is seven hours long for students and 8 hours long for

teachers and staff. Seventh grade students begin arriving in their homeroom classes at
9am and are dismissed at 9:58. This is about a 55 minute class period. They have a three

minute transition to their 1st academic class period which begins at 10:01 and ends at

10:58. This class period is about 57 minutes long. Another three minute transition takes

them to their 2nd academic class period, beginning at 11:01 and ends at 12:32. This is

the longest period of the day, sitting at about an hour and 30 minutes long, with a 23

minute lunch period nestled somewhere in the middle from 11:24 to 11:47. Each class is

given a lunch table, though there is some overflow of two or three students who will sit

at the table with another 7th grade class that is closest to their class. Lunch tables are

dismissed one by one, about three minutes apart, and one or two students stay behind as

“Cafeteria Sweepers”. To get students outside and into the fresh air–the first and only

time for the majority of them–students are permitted to walk outside and around the

building to get back to their classrooms where they will continue their 2nd period

learning. During this time, most students participate in a quick moment of socializing

with their classmates. However, to make the transition from lunch back to 2nd period

less chaotic, my Mentor Teacher has teamed up with the math teacher on our team and

her class, and we take on that transition together. Once inside, students are expected to

be quietly walking on the third tile. We usually arrive back to class around 12 noon and

continue on with 2nd period and the lesson at hand. At 12:36 students begin
transitioning downstairs to their first connection class, where they will stay for

approximately 43 minutes, until 1:19. After this students transition to the second

connection class where they stay for approximately 43 minutes again until 2:02. With a

four minute transition, students make their way back upstairs for their 3rd academic

class period beginning at 2:06 and going until 3:01. This is another 55 minute class

period. With one last three minute transition students arrive at their shortest academic

class period of the day, fourth period, which is also their homeroom location, at 3:04 and

participate in learning until the 4 o’clock dismissal bell. Each grade level consists of four

teams by which teachers are grouped–Silver team, Gold team, Green team and Blue

team. I have heard of one co-taught 7th grade classroom and heard of a possible second

and though I have not yet seen any real system of tracking, I once heard my Mentor

Teacher say that the Gold team was more so for special education students and when I

inquired about the team placement for gifted students she told me that they were

scattered throughout the teams. The 7th grade Social Studies department participates in

weekly planning meetings to discuss how students are meeting the standards of the

current unit and to solidify the learning targets of upcoming units. My Mentor Teacher

keeps time and updates the learning target calendar in these meetings. They met over

the summer to plan and pace out the entire school year, so I haven’t quite figured out
how I will participate in planning. There are many district wide initiatives this year,

including the implementation of more Social Emotional Learning (SEL) environments

and the implementation of Common Formative Assessments (CFA) which seems to be

the initiative that gets the most focus from the teachers I am surrounded with. CFA’s

were designed to replace the Georgia Milestones, and as my Mentor Teacher and I were

discussing when I would teach, that became a scheduling conflict because I would need

to teach on days that were reserved for CFA testing. Students have access to a variety of

learning resources. Their textbook, World Studies for Georgia Students 7, was written

by Hope Culpepper, my Mentor Teacher and published by Clairmont Press. They also

frequently use digital resources like NearPod, Quizizz, Quizlet and Google Classroom to

conduct and participate in learning.

Discipline in the school seems to be a huge focus of the school, even if

subconsciously, and it often feels like the first step to student remediation. There is

often talk of implementing something and then the immediate follow up question is

about consequences when students don’t adhere to the new initiative, without much

talk of a grace period to allow students to get used to the new initiative. For instance,

the district has implemented “Away For The Day”, an initiative in which students are

asked to keep their phones off and out of sight for the school day. Within the first week
of school, a student's phone rang in class and he was aggressively reprimanded. It was

embarrassing for the “offending” student and brought a tense, uncomfortable energy

into the classroom for the rest of the students. The reprimand was also more distracting

and took more class time away than the phone did.

On August 10th, inspired by 6th and 8th grade, the entire 7th grade teaching

team had a stand up meeting about implementing quiet transitions to and from

connections. The first teachers to respond to this new initiative were in favor of it and

simply wanted to know what the consequences would be for students who weren’t quiet.

A few of the other teachers spoke up and said that they thought it was a bad idea

because it’s healthy for students to socialize and that time is the only time they can talk

to their friends on different teams, even if only for a second.

In my three weeks at the school, I have witnessed many instances in which Black

students are reprimanded a lot more harshly for the same things that white students are

doing or have done. For example, we were walking back to 2nd period after lunch on

August 11th and students in one class were chanting, with the permission of their

teacher, and another teacher asked them to stop. One of the students, a Black girl, told

the reprimanding teacher that everyone was doing it and that they had permission. The

teacher began raising her voice and the student began walking away from her, the
teacher followed her and told her that she would be calling her mother during planning.

The next week on August 17th, this same teacher had a similar encounter with another

student, who also happens to be her daughter. The student raised her voice at her and

walked away from her. Her reaction? To just smile, chuckle and shake her head.

Earlier on the same day of August 17th, during homeroom, the 7th grade

Assistant Principal held a discipline meeting in the library for the entire 7th grade

Silver team. While this meeting was to discuss discipline, which doesn’t necessarily

have a positive connotation, it felt very negative leading. Again, they offer very little

chances for a warning or reminder and jump straight to silent lunch, detention,

Saturday school and discipline referrals. I know on the Silver team, specifically, every

student infraction or offense comes with a phone call home. After this meeting, during

the connections transition, my Mentor Teacher had a run in with a student who was

rushing down the stairs because she was late to her connections class. As the student is

rushing down the stairs, my Mentor Teacher, Mrs. Culpepper, tells her (and her

classmates) to stop and says, “you’re late” and a young lady, Black student, calmly turns

around and says to Mrs. Culpepper, “we’re late because of our teacher.” Mrs. Culpepper

snaps around and says, in an aggressive manner, “I don’t need the attitude!” and the 7th

grade AP takes off after the “offending student”. In class, I have also witnessed her
aggressively reprimand a disruptive Black male student while almost lovingly and

affectionately playing into the disruptions of a white male student–even calling him

sweetheart during one of his disruptive outbursts. There seems to be a bias, as she

seems to give the white male student much more benefit of the doubt, while the Black

student is always threatened with a silent lunch or aggressively told to sit there and be

quiet. These sort of interactions communicate, at the very least, that Black children are

a problem and/or need to be dealt with more aggressively than white children.

Mrs. Culpepper’s classroom usually only has one of the fluorescent overhead

lights on and even those are covered by light covers that have a cloud design on them.

It’s dimly lit with lamps and other small, non harsh, light sources spread throughout the

classroom–giving the classroom the look of a warm and welcoming space. Student desks

are split into clusters which allows them to easily work with others, should an

assignment call for that. Across the front, there are three clusters of four and across the

back there are two clusters of six and one cluster of four. There are many power strips

spread out throughout the classroom, in case students need to charge their laptops.

There is one long work table in the back of the room, that hasn’t been named yet, where

students can sit if they choose a power strip in the back of the room, or if they simply

want to sit alone while doing work. There is also a small library area in the back corner
with bed rest pillows on the floor. Overall, the aesthetic of the classroom says that

students can be comfortable. Though, as a [Black, female] Teacher Intern, I haven’t felt

overwhelmingly comfortable and welcome by my team. I’ve heard whispers of my name

as they congregate talking amongst one another, I often feel excluded and ignored by

them–they will walk into a room and not address me–and at times I’ve caught some of

the team teachers staring at me, like watching me but not saying anything to me. And it

makes me wonder if I, as an adult, feel this way around them and coming from them,

then how do their students that look like me feel?