Taking PE/Health students to CF

Last week, we took the Health and PE students to the School in order to expose them to what we were doing. It was interesting because it reminded me of our first trip and how I felt/thought. On the ride there, I asked the student sitting next to me what it was that he expected to see and experience when we got there. I figured that he might have some preconceptions and I was right, he said that he knew about District C's history and I agreed, but I reassured him that he would be surprised when we got there. I used the experience as almost like a day of research for my own personal use. I wanted to know how a persons preconceptions changed after experiencing something first hand. Anyway, so through out the day I asked him if he was surprised and he said yes, and even that his school was in some ways "worse" than this one, that his school was more rowdy and disorganized. This was a pleasant and interesting surprise. I remember on our first trip, wondering if the school would be like what I expected, and to be honest, some of the things that I thought I would see, I did. I knew the student body would be dominantly hispanic, I expected to hear a lot of Spanish, so in that regard, I was correct; however, it's important to realize that it's a High School, the students are all full of hormones and energy, so of course some students were going to be more boisterous and loud and of course they're going to swear, they're teenagers. I failed to look at the school through a non biased lens. I only looked at the location, not the people. There was that one altercation in the hallway, but you know what, now that I've changed my opinion, I realize that it's not because of the school or the location or the past history of the city, it's because "teenager", that's why. This experience is great in 407, but would be in my opinion even better for an FNED 346 class where race and gender and stereotypes are discussed. I truly hope that this program is adopted by FNED 346 because I wish I had these experiences when I took it. For that class, I worked at a High School in Providence and just from that, my preconceptions of inner city schools were changed, never mind if I had done this type of observation. In the link below, I recommend taking a look at the "How an area looks" paragraphs and think about our I-spy activity on the bus.

http://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/quality-insider-article/danger-preconceptions.html