Thomas Steele

EDUC 41210
Community Asset Paper

Part 1: Community/District/School/Classroom Profile

A. Community - REDACTED, New York has a population of 6,594, according to the

U.S. census data for 2015. The area is made up of predominantly white individuals, with
92% of the population identifying as such, with 3% identifying as being of Asian
descent, 2% identifying as Hispanic, 2% as biracial, and 1% as African American. 6.2%
speak a language other than English at home. 53% of the inhabitants identify as female,
and 47% as male. The median household income is just under $54,000 per year, and
nearly 10% of people fall below the poverty line. 93.8% of the population have
completed high school or some form of higher education, with 28.9% having completed
a bachelor’s degree or higher (U.S. Census, 2015).

The district is mostly rural, with some housing developments in the community.
The community and surrounding area are heavily focused on farming and agriculture.
The Arnot Mall, just a few blocks over from the Middle School, is a big gathering place
for the residents, especially the students. The movie theater it houses is a big draw for
both the students and their families, and it has a large food court that many of the older
students like to hang out at (Personal communication, Kelly Patelunas, 2017).

B. District - The school district is 89% white, with black, hispanic, island native, and
mixed race students making up about 2% of the population each. Enrollment is 51%
male, 49% female, and the district has had a graduation rate of about 84% over the last
four years. About 30% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches (NYSED
Report Card, 2017).

There are seven schools in the district. Four elementary schools, which house
pre-k through fourth grade, the intermediate school, which houses grades five and six,
the middle school, which is attached to the intermediate school and houses grades
seven and eight, and the high school, which houses grades nine through twelve. The
district itself encompasses not just the immediate area of the town, but the small towns
and villages around it as well. The district mission is “Explore, Empower, Excel.” The
district sports programs are some of the highest performing and possess some of the
best records in the state. The music and art programs frequently bring home honors and
awards for their respective schools. The district claims to set high standards for their
students and provide them with “all the tools they need to be successful” (Pirozzolo,
2017).
C. School - I am placed at a Middle School, under 8th grade science teacher
REDACTED. The school principal is REDACTED, who oversees the 650 enrolled
students here. There is a total of 54 teachers across the 7th and 8th grade faculty, not
counting myself and other student teachers placed in the school (NYSED Report Card,
2017). There are parent teacher organization meetings every Thursday evening.
Students and teachers here are organized into three teams: red, white, and blue team.
There is one teacher from each content area present on each team, and students who
are assigned to a team generally take their classes with the content teacher assigned to
that same team, unless scheduling conflicts arise (Pirozzolo, 2017).

D. Classroom - I teach 5 sections of an 8th grade science class, which generally

follows the NYS 8th grade science curriculum structure, which means that the students
take the 8th grade science test at the end of the year. We do not teach from or at all
utilize a textbook in this class. The classes are mixed ability and do not follow or employ
tracking. I have a total of 107 students, with no enl students in any of my classes, and
21 students who fall under an IEP or 504 plan. Most of these plans cover things like
preferential seating, copies of cass notes, verbal refocusing cues, and word processors
required for long written assignments. The class makeup is about 51% female, 49%
male. The room is 40’ by 40’, and there is a prep room attached where we store most of
our experimental materials.

Part 2: Exploration of Community Assets

A. Educational Resources - Educational resources within or near the district include

the Discovery Center, which seeks to further educate residents of the area in science,
engineering, and technology through a large number of interactive exhibits, demos, and
classes, the Free Library, the National Soaring museum, which is a collecting of the
history and science behind aerospace technology, and the Tanglewood Nature Center,
an interactive location aimed at environmental science education.

Of these, the one I found to be the most useful resource was the Discovery
Center. The Discovery Center houses one of the largest aerospace collections in New
York State. It frequently hosts programs exhibits, and classes on the subject of
aerospace travel and engineering, biological and biomedical study, and recent
technological advances, all of which are done in a fun, interactive setting, with hands-on
activities. It sits in the town, and is open during school hours and on the weekends.
They also host Summer programs linking physics, biology and chemistry, showcasing
and demonstrating the connections through activities. Tours through the exhibits can be
lead by someone from the center or self-guided. Some of the most popular features
include flight simulators, interactive, buildable models of engines at full scale, and the
Magic Sphere, which offers a real time, interactive projection of the Earth which can be
changed to display certain “what if” scenarios or real time footage of the planet as seen
from space (Wings of Discovery, 2017).

This is an incredibly important asset to have so close to the school, as

engagement in science is extremely important especially at the middle school level.
Students are experiencing their first actual, daily science class once they have reached
the middle school, and if that class isn’t interesting, we run the risk of turning them off to
the idea of science for the rest of their school career. Being able to not only make the
classroom interactive and interesting, but to take the students out and show them real
world examples of science being fun and engaging is a hugely important part of that.
The fact that it is open both during school hours and on the weekends means that the
Discovery Center can serve as both a school-supervised field trip destination or a very
personalized family experience for everyone to learn from. Having this resource makes
it fun and easy for students to learn science at this critical stage.

The Discovery Center can also serve as a place of teacher growth and learning.
The exhibits, activities, demos and classes can all help a science teacher to remake
and improve their teaching styles, methods, and in-class activities by experiencing ways
they could be made more interactive and engaging to the students. Given that reflection
and change is such an important part of being a teacher, this will be incredibly useful to
any science teachers in the area.

B. Recreational Spaces - Some of the recreational spaces in the area include the
Arnot Mall, the Holding Point Recreational Complex, and the Mill Street Pond, a popular
fishing and ice-skating location.

The recreational
resource I chose to
further investigate
is the Mall. I chose this because, according to most teachers and students, this is the
most popular place for students to spend time. The mall is located only a few blocks
from the middle school. It hosts a number of areas that seem to be of keen interest to
the students. These areas include the food court, the movie theater, and the expo
center. The expo center is especially interesting, because it hosts a wide variety of
events, including one which several of my students very recently attended, “The
Science of Scouting,” which was a presentation by the Boy Scouts of America. This
presentation broke down and explained many aspects of scouting, like starting fires and
purifying water, through the lens of scientific explanation. The theater is a popular family
destination. Many students have told me that they and their families frequently visit the
theater on weekends, as it presents an easy family activity on weekends when they
aren’t busy. The most popular spot for the students, however, is the food court. The
food court is actually not a traditional mall food court, and is basically just an outdoor
seating area where many people can come to eat after getting food to go at one of the
interior restaurants of the mall. This is a very popular hangout spot for the older
students during warm weather. From the arious students I have talked to, they go to the
area to do anything from grabbing a bite to eat to doing their homework in a setting
other than their own home, or just to spend time with friends.

This space is important for the students and the community as a whole because
taking a moment to pause and de-stress is incredibly important, especially in the life of a
student, and the mall provides them with a space in which to do that. It presents
students and their families with multiple opportunities to take a breather and occupy
themselves with something fun that isn’t work or school. This is very important for
mental health, family stability, and student performance, as without the ability to take a
breather, students would likely get burnt out on all their work very quickly.

Part 3: Implications and Considerations for the Future

The information I gathered during this assignment felt very familiar to me. I grew
up in a town a little smaller than this, with a very active farming and shipping
community, and very low diversity among the population. The lens I was initially viewing
this through was one of familiarity. However, I failed to realize that times have changed
since I was in school. Small town life is not the same as it was, and I certainly never had
many of the resources growing up that the students here do, like the multiple science
centers, or the mall for a hangout spot. Because I approached this with familiarity I
naively assumed that I knew what the lives of the students were like here, and that I had
gone through the same, or at least similar, experiences as they have. I also assumed
that I knew its people, and found myself surprised to learn that, among my students at
least, there are many fairly wealthy families in the immediate area, despite what the
average household income data would suggest. From the data and profile I assembled
at the beginning, I had assumed that, much like my own background, the area would be
filled with low ses, farming families, and that the community was not the type that could
generate the income to support something like multiple science centers or a full-sized
mall. Despite the fact that I don’t believe that low ses or coming from a farming
background means that you are unintelligent, given the fact that I have lived through
those conditions, many people coming to teach in this area may wrongfully believe that
idea, which could cause them to talk down to their students, teach to them as if they will
inherently not understand the material, and have a general air about them that the
students will be able to pick up on. If it is clear that the teacher thinks less of the
students, the learning environment is not a positive and supportive one. The context
within which a school community sits should be used as a benefit to the students, to
craft relevant examples and draw meaningful connections, creating an overall positive
learning experience for the students. To use this context as anything other than an
objective tool would be to use it incorrectly, as one cannot make assumptions about it if
they haven’t been a part of it.

This information has helped me to connect with my students in a very positive

way. I can talk with them about things I am familiar with, and let them teach me about
their area and the things they are familiar with, and then use this to draw connections
between their lives and what we cover in class. In this way, I’m able to craft a learning
experience that is relevant to every student here, by constantly changing my teaching to
reflect their experiences. This kind of information sourcing will not only be helpful, but
necessary at any job or placement I take because of this. Talking to teachers and
administrators who work there, looking up online resources, and even considering
crowd-sourced reviews of areas and facilities helps to form a certain understanding of
the area before I ever even take up shop there. However, once there, the most
important resource will always be the students, as they are the ones the learning is
being tailored to.