Jonathan Paul Loomis
October 28, 1998
Field Experience: Education
Dr. Chace
Walt Whitman High School
I could not find a written philosophy of education anywhere in the materials the school printed, the school's web page, or in the building itself. The principle seemed to indicate by his attitude that he believed his students were not much different from all other students, just that they came to WW with a different set of problems. From what he said I got the feeling that he felt his students were very capable, so long as his faculty could overcome these problems.
The student body is 70% Caucasian, 20% Asian, 6% Hispanic, and 4% Black (mostly African nationals here due to diplomatic positions held by their parents). The school seemed to be evenly divided between males and females. Each class averaged about 400 students, with the senior class just under, and the other three ranging over that number. It did not appear that the school was growing, i.e. that the classes were larger as the grades decreased. The students generally come from the most affluent neighborhoods in the DC metro area. I would place them on the upper and middle regions of the American middle class. I did not find that all the students drove Mercedes to school or that their parents were all lawyers, although they all did drive their own cars.
95% of the graduating seniors go on to some form of college. 86% to four-year institutions, and 9% to two-year colleges. 70% attend colleges out of state.
I would not rank WW as troubled, due to the obvious successes the students have in AP and SAT tests. However, from the observations I did, I can not bring myself to qualify WW as outstanding. I felt that the students ruled the school and the classrooms far too much. It was as if the teachers were only there to facilitate the students' fun. The freshman Spanish class I observed was especially disillusioning. Students shouted out, held side conversations, chewed gum, wore hats, jumped up out of their seats, talked while the teacher was talking, and took an especially long time to "quiet" down when she wanted their attention. She noted to me on the side that of the 33 students in the class almost 25 had been granted special treatment due to some learning condition. Obviously this is a problem (the principal noted it as well). The students are playing the system to get out of work, and getting away with it. It's as if they know all along that they are rich and don't need to be educated. They've had everything handed to them their whole lives, so why should they let some annoying teacher tell them that they need to work. This seems paradoxical to me, because the students' test scores are so high. However, despite these high scores, due to the conditions I've just described, I think that WW could be doing so much more than they are. They have a wonderful building, and a veritable gold mine of a neighborhood. They should be pushing their students more, and their students shouldn’t just be performing better than students in the District, they should be clobbering students in the District.
The students won most of the victories I observed, in that they got away with things I wouldn't let my students even think about. For example, there was an upperclassman in the Spanish class who was obviously there as a student aid. He talked incessantly while the teacher was trying to instruct. She would yell at him and he would be quiet for a second. However, the moment she turned her attention back to the class he would start talking again. I also observed a rather sad episode in which she told one of the students to "shut up," upon which the other students chimed in with some rather less than flattering comments of their own. It was hard to tell, but I'm pretty sure that one of the students told the teacher to "shut up yourself." In this case, of course, everyone lost.
Yes. The students live in a sheltered world, and the fact that they are afraid to look past the protected boundaries of their community seemed to create a sense that they were all in it together, protecting themselves from the contaminating influences of the outside like poverty, carlessness, unfasionality, etc.
Generally speaking, no. I grew up in a community and a high school where this mentality was evident, although not dominant or all encompassing as in WW. I got the sense the moment we pulled into the parking lot of the school that this was the type of place it would be, and it lived up (or down) to my expectations. I was only disappointed to find that so much potential and so many resources were being pushed aside by students who seemed to be getting their way.