The School Community :)

This past week I started to take on more responsibilities in the classroom, one of which was dismissal. At WLE, they have a drive-thru where parents arrive and have a yellow sheet in their window with the student(s) name they are picking up. My CT happens to be the faculty member that is always outside making sure things go smoothly and that the students are getting into the correct vehicles. I took advantage of this alone time in the classroom with the students and began asking questions about their school community. I had never really been to Walled Lake before and barely knew more than 3 or 4 roads. The students were completely engaged in this end of the day routine that went on during the 2nd week of school. They were really excited to share about places that they were going, or the restaurants they ate at, or just where they lived.

I took notes and wrote down some of the places they mentioned, then went and visited a few of them later that week. I did not realize that right around the corner, less than a ½ mile away, is the actual lake, Walled Lake. It is huge! I was not surprised to see how gorgeous all the homes were around it. Some of the students had mentioned living on the lake or lived walking distance from “Mercer Beach”. While driving around the lake looking at all the homes I did pass by the beach. I definitely plan on revisiting these places because it was pouring rain when I drove around and feel like I missed so many details and opportunities for both math and literacy. Other places I plan on visiting is the community center and the library both of which are minutes away from the school.

Driving around really gave me an idea of how large Walled Lake’s school district is, many of us in class are in Walled Lake Schools and I found this surprising before having no background knowledge of the community. It surprised me how different each of our school communities seems to be just from talking in class. My school is not very diverse, and just minutes down the road another schools’ community is extremely diverse. I expected to see more people out and about in the “downtown” part of the area but again the weather probably played a major factor in this, so when I travel around Walled Lake later this week I expect to see more children and adults walking around shopping, eating, and interacting.