Florida Educator Accomplished Practice #3

Bryan Rodin
2/3/2020

Application of Understanding Assignment #2: Observe students in class as they mix and
mingle and note any specific ways they do – or do not – interact. Write a narrative of what you
observed and review with your Clinical Education Teacher and University Supervisor. You can
choose either placement for this FEAP.

Throughout my first internship placement I had the opportunity to observe some of the

social behaviors of the middle schoolers I was working with. It was interesting to get glimpses of

this; despite the majority of the time they were very focused in class and not really interacting

with each other due to Mr. Williamson’s great classroom management. When I did get a chance

to see the students mingle, I saw what I would assume is fairly typical behavior of students that

age. There were groups of simpering girls, giggling to themselves over nothing, and many of the

boys are trying to become comfortable in their own skin.

There are multitudes of interpersonal dynamics between individuals, but I would

suggest that the most valuable information I found in observing students’ behaviors is that

which I gleaned from two specific students in one of the beginning band classes. One of the

students is very quiet, she does not speak unless spoken to. She would constantly show up

looking very disheveled, with her hair all matted. Mr. Williamson told me that he believes that

she is undiagnosed on the autism spectrum. She would constantly be sniffling, readjusting her

music stand and swaying her flute back and forth on the floor. On multiple occasions she would

drop her flute, and each time Mr. Williamson would send home an email detailing her
misconduct to her parents. On one occasion, the flute section was doing a quiz on the

chromatic scale. She could hardly make a sound on the instrument, would not play with the

metronome, and ended up in the wrong place because she did not know her fingerings. She

ended up receiving a grade of 18/100. She also had no reaction to this result. It was quite

fascinating to observe her behavior.

The other student that was quite interesting to observe was a beginning tuba player.

Upon first glance or conversation everything would appear perfectly normal, as it did with me

for some time. Eventually though, I realized though that he is the type of person where as soon

as he gets even remotely stressed or challenged, he shuts down. He will not speak, make eye

contact, or participate in class, let alone tell you what is wrong. This behavior stumped both

myself and Mr. Williamson. Many times the student would be late to class, or have to leave

early due to his requesting to go to Student Services (campus counseling). I followed Mr.

Williamson’s efforts to discover what was going on with this student, and through a call home

we were able to uncover that the student’s grandmother had just recently passed away and the

student was severely affected by this loss. It was interesting to see one of the ways a student

can cope with loss and the different methods they resort to communicating with.