annotated notes

Tara Finn
Eng Comp
2/2/09
Alice-Carlson Observation Notes

As I began to observe this school so close to TCU’s campus I began to narrow down what exactly I would be focusing on during this analysis. I decided to focus on the outside of the school because not only can more people see the actual environment, but also because getting into the school felt a little uncomfortable. I was planning on observing with my educational psychology class but because of the weather, we had to forgo our observations. I want to be able to relate this school to the larger TCU community, not just the Stadium and Cantey intersection.
I went o observe on January 29 around 3:25 p.m. The very first thing I noticed was the line of cars waiting to for the children to come out. The line went down most of Cantey and began to loop around University Drive. Every kind of car seemed to be in that line. There were ones ranging from 2009 Ford-150 to Toyota Camries that seemed a bit older. As I began to look to see who was driving the cars, I noticed that it was mostly women who I would safely assume are mothers. But as I began to think this, I caught myself because of the situation that I have been with the children I babysit for. I pick them up from school and while I wait for them to come out, I can feel other mothers looking at me as if I am a teenage mother. I decided it would be best to begin focusing on the actual school itself.
Even with the students inside, I could still here their noises from across the street on TCU’s campus. Within the reddish-brown brick walls and the red roof with the white pillars were hundreds of children excited to get out of school. There were stairs up to every entrance with the thresholds being white with lots of windows. I noticed that the building itself looks very professional, almost to the point as if it were a business and not a school. I thought it could have used some more color and playfulness. All around the school there were trees and shrubs filling in the gaps between buildings. I noticed the stop sign with the TCU purple street signs. And the silver fire hydrants located all along the intersection. There seemed to be a lot of TCU students crossing the street as well. Then I began to notice the actual physical weather environment. It was sunny and warm with a light breeze. It was quite noisy and there were also birds chirping.
Then the students came out and the noise escalated and the grass seemed to be flooded with children coming from all directions. The car line began to move and children seemed to leave fairly quickly. Soon, there were not more children left and the place seemed empty.

Saturday January 31, 2009

I decided to observe again on the weekend to see what the building had to say for itself when there were no children in it. It was severely more quiet and all I could hear was the occasional car and the few birds. It seemed like the school was lonely with no children inside of it learning and exploring.