EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 1

EDI 310: Student Case Study

Flor Santiago Vega

Grand Valley State University

 EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 2

Jay Jackson is the student I chose to observe for the student case study. He is a male,

Black student at Union High School. He is 16 years old, a junior and a varsity football player.

These are all things that you notice looking at Jay as an outsider. Once you get to know him, you

realize so much more. He’s talkative, funny, charismatic, and a smart kid. From day one at my

teacher assisting placement, Jay caught my attention. The first couple of days of the school year,

he was placed in one of the Spanish II classes but the next week, he was transferred to Spanish I.

My cooperating-teacher said this was because he had failed Spanish I last year and needed to

retake it. He went to West Catholic for his freshman year and ended up transferring to Union last

year during his sophomore year. He’s mentioned to me that he felt out of place at West Catholic

and mentioned the blatant racism he saw there. Jay lives with both his parents and a couple of his

younger siblings. He has older siblings as well but does not live with them. From what I’ve

learned these past few months, he is fairly close to both of his parents. The day that the school

and parents found out about the bomb threat that was called into Union, Jay’s mom immediately

came and picked him up from school. He said as he walked out the room that his mom that had

told him, “There are better ways for you to die.” Jay’s interests include watching anime and

music. In fact, we share a lot of the same favorite artists like Tyler, the Creator, Daniel Caesar,

Billie Eilish, and Kali Uchis. More than anything, he is a huge fan of anime, so much that you

can find him distracted by it in class. Like I mentioned, Jay plays football but I do not get the

feeling that he loves playing it. Rather he plays, because he knows he is good at it. Jay believes

he is “grown” and has mentioned to me that he had to grow up at a young age. He has also said

that “he comes from nothing”. He talks about how he has to hustle in order to get by. He’s had a

tough childhood but he’s resilient and radiates positivity.

 EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 3

I feel that Jay has many strengths. He is a smart kid, charismatic, has a sense of humor

and I have never heard him talk down or speak badly of any of his classmates. On his best days,

Jay is fully engaged, sharing good news about his personal life and asking me or my cooperating

teacher about how our days are going. However, I have seen Jay completely out of it and not

willing to participate. You can always tell when he is not in the mood. Just recently, he came

into class with his headphones on, walked straight to his seat and put his head down. I tried to get

him to talk to me multiple times by asking him how he was doing or if he had gotten any sleep

the night before. No response. Sometimes, I feel that he disengages in class because he has

already been through Spanish I, does not feel challenged and is tired from not sleeping the night

before. I chose to do the student case study on Jay for a multitude of reasons but mostly because

he is such a complex student and I feel that we connect through our mutual interests such as

music and anime. While our backgrounds are not the same, as a person of color, I feel that I can

relate when he talks having a rough childhood. Another significant part of Jay’s life is Camp

Blodgett. Jay has been a camper there since he was a little kid and now he is a student leader. He

has shown me videos of him interacting with the younger campers and even an interview where

he talks about how much he loves being there during the summer. During one of my first

observations of Jay, I wrote about this moment when he shared his experiences about Camp

Blodgett, which I thought were beautifully said. “Even when it’s raining, it’s always positive. I

am always laughing, having a good time. I mean I’ll do it every day. If I could I would do it

every day.” During his interview, you could see he was being genuine and speaking his truth.

From that moment on, I knew that Jay was all about spreading positivity to others’ lives and I

think that’s something we can all learn from.

 EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 4

Union High School is a public, urban school in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It is one of two

comprehensive schools in the district. It is a highly diverse school, with 86% being students of

color. 47% are Latinx/Hispanic, 32% are Black, and 14% are White and 7% are multiracial. 80%

of the students come from families of low-socioeconomic status. Union ranks in the bottom 50%

of all Michigan schools as far as test scores. Our Spanish classroom is set up with tables that are

in rows, with two students sitting at each table. My cooperating teacher is much more of a

traditional teacher than I believe myself to be and prefers this set-up over having the tables set-up

in groups. During the first trimester, Jay was sitting in the front but at the start of the second

trimester, my cooperating teacher moved him toward the back of the classroom. There are a

handful of students in the Spanish I classes that are retaking Spanish this year so they know my

cooperating-teacher, Mr. Ramirez. They have built a relationship with him and respect him. This

is one thing I admire about Mr. Ramirez. He graduated from Union himself and knows the

student population very well, builds positive relationships with them, connects with them and

shows interest in their lives outside of the Spanish classroom. A social contract was created by

Mr. Ramirez and the students during the first week. Each student signed the contract and these

are posted around the classroom.

Strategies and interventions that I have implemented with Jay include restorative

practices and trying to engage the students through technology apps and tools. I also felt very

empowered by Calvin Terrell’s professional development with us and tries to use some of the

strategies he talked to us about, such as the getting the kids up and moving, saying their names

back and practicing excellence and always trying to at least meet the students halfway. Close to

Halloween, Jay was pulled out of Spanish class on a Friday because he was fighting outside of

school grounds the day before. The security guard came to get him and made it sound like he
 EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 5

was not going to be back for a few days. Jay, as usual, was calm, got his backpack and followed

the security guard. I was worried but could not do anything about it so we kept moving with our

day. The following Monday, I was walking to our Spanish classroom and Jay came up to me and

with excitement said “I did not get suspended on Friday, Miss!” We high-fived each other and I

told him I was happy about that. This was the second time a situation similar to this happened

with him this semester. Later on, when he came to class, I put restorative practices to use and

tried to figure out why the fight almost happened. He explained that other students from Union

were trying to fight him and Hodo at the bus station. He was hesitant to talk about why they

almost fought but he did open up a bit about it. Rudolf Dreikurs talks about how the focus of

restorative practices is to understand the student’s behavior and understand why. Dreikurs

believes that punishment does not change the behavior. Another belief of restorative practices is

that communication and respect between the teacher and students is crucial. I wholeheartedly

agree with this. Once Jay could see that I was genuinely interested in what was happening with

him and wanted him to be in Spanish class and not suspended, he began to engage more. One

time when I asked him for help, he even said “Miss, you know I always got you.” This was an

important moment. Although, he did engage and participate in classroom activities on most days,

he still checked out at times. Since some of the students insist on being on their phone, I thought

that I could use this to get their attention and practicing Spanish. Jay was one of the kids that

took to this and participated when technology was to be used for either our warm-up activities or

group work. We used apps like Kahoot, Quizizz, Quizlet Live, Peardeck and FlipGrid. Like I had

mentioned, sometimes I feel that Jay shuts down because he does not feel challenged and finds

his anime shows to be a lot more entertaining. I do not blame him for some of this as my

cooperating teacher is a big fan of focusing on grammatical aspects of Spanish and filling out
 EDI 310: STUDENT CASE STUDY 6

worksheets. This is why when I would teach lessons or lead the activities, I tried to incorporate

more group work than my cooperating-teacher was used to doing. I wanted to get the students up

and moving so they could have conversations with their peers. With Jay, sometimes this worked

and sometimes it didn’t. For the most part, I gave the students the option to pick their

partners/group members and this was a good and bad idea. Depending on his mood, he would try

the activity but other times, he would refuse. Overall, I feel that I have built a positive

relationship with Jay and that he knows he’s got an adult in me that he can trust to root for him

and encourage to keep pushing and not give up. But sometimes, I am not quite sure. Those days

that he shuts down and does not take any instruction are worrisome. He’s such a bright student

though and just needs the right adults/role models to continue to push him. He’s a kid that needs

to engaged in meaningful and real-world activities. Like he says, he had to grow up at a young

age and filling out worksheets is not going to keep him focused or motivated at all.