Grad student here. I just spent the day sitting in on an 8th grade American History class. Here are some of my observations:

I spent the day sitting in on an 8th grade American History class. I was extremely impressed with my experience. I've spent the last few years reading horror stories on this website, so I went in with extremely low expectations. I just wanted to run down the list of things I observed:<br><br>-The students were mostly very respectful and considerate of each other. There was a small group of about 3 kids who were acting out at times, but the teacher handled them well.<br><br>-Once, a student showed up late and apologized profusely. The teacher explained to the student that he was going to go the office and get a late slip. Then the student apologized again for being a burden. <br><br>-The students were faliliar with the teacher's classroom rules and were more self-regulating then I expected. For example, the teacher allows students to use the bathroom when they want, but they still need to ask first. The teacher didn't have any problems with kids abusing this. <br><br>-The teacher had a very no nonsense, blunt, and funny teaching style. He was very self confident and did not tolerate much in the realm of disruptions. He explained to the class that there is a time for discipline and a time for mercy, and that this was a discipline heavy classroom. He was very funny, and the kids seemed to like him a lot.<br><br>-I didn't see any students using cell phones the entire time I was there. This was a major shock to me. <br><br>-When students had free time, most of them did their schoolwork for other classes. I counted two students playing on their phones during an assignment, and one of them was coloring (She had a legitimate reason I think). There was also one student playing a flash game, but the teacher told him to stop when he saw. <br><br>-There is this one device to project the teacher's screen that the teacher uses to project to his main screen. During the first lesson, this device wasn't working. The teacher called the tech guys and then we moved on to the next lesson. At one point, a student asked if they could try to fix the projector. The teacher let them try, and after a few minutes, they fixed it. <br><br>-There was a kid who walked in with a pretty apparent speech impediment. He had a tablet that he used to talk to the teacher, and the kids were understanding. At one point he asked one of the students for help, and they were very kind to him. <br><br>-At lunch, I walked around the cafeteria. There were a bunch of kids eating, and the noise was nothing like I had imagined. It was just a very normal noise, like any cafeteria.<br><br>-Then the teacher took me down to the football field, where many of the students were hanging out. I saw many of the students from his class socializing, and they all seemed to know each other. They told me about their weekend plans. It was overall a very pleasant experience.<br><br>-I talked to the teacher afterwards, and he told me that his experience with this age group was very positive. He said that it is a great time of life because the kids are old enough to get good work out of, but young enough to not be too cynical and jaded yet. He told me that the biggest challenge of the job is not the kids, but the administrators and the parents. He has been doing this for 7 years, and he seems to love it. <br><br>So I feel a lot better about becoming a teacher after this experience. There were no cell phones, no profanity, no violence, and almost no disruptions. Anyways, just wanted to post my observations.