What's up with Watkins?
This past Monday I visited Watkins Memorial High School, shadowing a peer by the name of Gary, in order to compare and contrast the differences between Watkins and Licking Valley.
Prior to the visit, I emailed their principal to get an okay to write and join their school for a day. He thought it was a wonderful idea, and I was more than excited to get the opportunity to go to another school for a day.
Compared to Valley, Watkins’ structural layout is very self-explanatory. It’s one big hallway with a handful of smaller hallways, where the classrooms are located.
At Valley, when you walk in the door to your left is the commons and the gyms. To the right are the main stairs and hallways leading to the classrooms.
Watkins has a very easy set up for their hallways, 100-800 halls to make classes easy to find. Valley halls that have rooms 101-106 and so one.
One big difference I noticed was that there weren’t any windows in the classrooms I visited. It took me all day to figure out why Watkins felt more enclosed than Valley, but once I figured it out I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Whilst visiting the school, I only had two bad experiences, but the rest were normal interactions. Many people didn’t even notice I was there.
I think almost every school is going to be the same when it comes to the way the students act. I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary disregarding the time when a student who got almost incensed when the teacher wouldn’t tell him who he voted for.
As soon as walked into the building I could tell there was less traffic in the main hallway at Watkins than at Valley. At Valley you have to wave through all the tired, half asleep, people trying to wake before they get to class. It’s much more lively and awake at Watkins, everyone seemed ready for the day.
While I was at Watkins I didn’t get called out or asked who I was, just stared at by a few curious minds wondering who this new girl was.
My favorite time of the day was fourth period when we were in the MH (mentally-handicapped) room. It was fun to meet the cheerful teachers and the animated students. Mr. Eader even asked me if I’ve ever given Mr. Ellis, the agriculture teacher here, a “three-five.”
In the MH room, Gary and I got to tutor two of the students the day I was there, Caeman and Tyler.
Caeman was a very tall and large set boy that enjoys singing and making patterns with blocks. Gary and I chose words out of a story for him to define, but he didn’t pay much attention and guessed on all of the questions.
After, we gave him patterns to make out of blocks and he got all of them right and excitedly gave Gary a very enthusiastic high-five.
Tyler is a short, muscular boy that can speak, but speaks with a speech impediment. He’s very intelligent and told us what several Constitutional amendments mean.
Tyler and Caeman
Each student has a unique thing that they do, or like. Caeman likes to sing and he does an action when he’s excited where he pulls his arms in-and-out, and makes a very loud sound. Every once in awhile Tyler will get up and rock on both feet until Mrs. Holbrook tells him to sit back down.
This class was so enjoyable that I’m almost disconsolate that I can’t go back and see Tyler and Caeman again.
I enjoyed my time at Watkins, and I’m thankful I got the opportunity to visit another school for a day, and seeing the differences between the two schools were very eye opening.
I have to give a big thank you to Mr. Tanchevski, the principal of Watkins, and Mr. Weaver, our principal, for allowing me to visit his school for a day.
