There are two building connected to each other. A rectangle building and a round building. There are two entrances in the rectangular building with one stating that it is the front office and the other one saying it is building “A” in the school. There are huge letters painted on the outside of the round building with the school’s name, “Kyrene Del Notre”, in school colors (Navy blue and yellow). On the rectangular building, it has the school’s name again with words underneath saying, Dual Language Academy. Under the school name and description, they welcome people in both English and Spanish.
Once you walk through the front office and into the school, the library is in the middle of the round building which is where the majority of the school classrooms are. The hallway is a circle which goes around the library and there are classrooms on the opposite side of the library. Walking to the music classroom, there are more classrooms leading up to it. Next to the music room, the art room is there, and they are both at the end of the hall which leads to the playground.
The music classroom is connected to the cafeteria/stage. It is blocked off with a removable wall. When lunch time is approaching, you can smell school lunches through the wall. The smartboard is on the east side of the room while the keyboard instruments also face to the east. There is an area where the students sit in between the smartboard and the keyboards. The sink, water fountain, and the phone are all in the back of the room. There are signs around the room with musical terms, time periods, solfege, recorder fingerings, expectations, and curriculum goals.
A lot of the posters and boards in the hallways are both in Spanish and English. Since this is a dual language academy, they try to apply both languages to the boards. The boards also display the students’ work on lessons they are learning in their grade classroom. There is a board coming out of the front office right next to the teacher workroom where is has a large picture of the continents. There is a dialogue bubble next to the ones that have Spanish speaking countries, naming the country in Spanish and English.
I hear teachers talking to their classes in both in Spanish and English. Each grade class either has Spanish in the morning and English in the afternoon or vice versa. Depending which language they have, the teacher is talking to them in that language. Next to the door of each classroom, they have the teacher’s name in either in Spanish or English because the way a teacher is addressed in Spanish is a little different (Mrs. Gil vs Maestra Gil).
The announcements are also bilingual. Some stuff is said in Spanish and in English. Some messages are also translated so that the students are getting announcements in both languages and understanding everything. In the announcements, they announce birthdays, cougar stars, the lunch menu, and anything else important that the students may need to know. The announcements are done by the principal and sometimes the student council.
I think the messages are coming from the teachers and administration. Going back to the dual language academy idea, the administration knows that the goal of the students is to learn Spanish to be able to use it in the future so if they apply Spanish to their boards and conversations, they can immerse themselves in the language. The teachers also know the goal, so they apply those to the activities they are doing in their classrooms.
the first ethnography assignment. I researched that this school is a dual language academy which lines up with what they do at the school. A majority of the bulletin boards and posters are in Spanish and also translated in English. This immerses the students to use both languages they are learning in their classes. I can also see that the population at this school is Hispanic seeing the percentages in the music classrooms. I do not see their exam scores or go to their grade classrooms to see if they are matching up with all the scores that are online. It is a little hard to see some of the research that I did in the first assignment at this school because a lot of the research is quantitative versus what I am observing which is qualitative.
Joseph Schwab had an important impact on educational research and practice. He emphasized the preparation of school curriculum through the study of the philosophies of education and science. He originated a program for educational improvements called The Practical. In The Practical, there are five bodies of disciplines and experiences necessary for curriculum development in education. The first four are considered as commonplaces. An example from Peter Pereira article explains the commonplaces in detail, “Someone (a teacher) is teaching something (subject matter) to someone else (a student) in a network of social and cultural contexts (milieux).” The fifth body is a curriculum specialist to make sure that the other bodies are coordinated because each one of the bodies work with each other.
Sources:
https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2401/Schwab-Joseph-1909-1988.html
https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/schwab-joseph-j
https://condor.depaul.edu/ppereira/pers/intro.htm
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