Veteran Wisdom or Youth Curiosity?

First full week at school was interesting. Monday, My CT pulled me aside to discuss a male student in the class. Student F (his name starts with F) is a Latino, 15 year old junior who obviously was put into this class to fill his schedule. This student had been tardy 3 out of 4 days, and occasionally would snooze for 1-2 5 to 10 minute sessions of the class. This is very typical in journalism classes, because most are female dominated. She showed me on her computer that Student F scored poorly on his english state assessments (specifically writing and reading). She said many students that scored this poorly on these assessments don't make it in the class, and she was considering emailing an administrator about his removal from the class. I quickly said "No, I think we should give him more of a chance). In one of the first classes, one of the assignments was for students to look at a news article and give the five w's (who what when where why) and "h" (how) in each story. When glancing at each students work, I was very impressed with the higher level questions Student F had used on this assignment. This little tadbit gave me hope for the student, and is what prompted me to tell my CT to hold off for now. It's obvious this student is lacking motivation, but I have found out he is very much into sports, and likes California teams (Lakers, Angels, etc). Finding a way to relate his love for sports to the idea of the lesson is obviously key with this student. In today's class, I made sure to spend a little extra time asking him answers, and getting him to use that higher level thinking that I believe he has. I am very humbled my CT considered my opinion in keeping Student F in the class. Her veteran wisdom and experience led her to believe that this student might not make it. My youthful curiousity led me to believe to give this kid more of a chance. This was a great first step in developing our student teacher-ct relationship. This Monday, I will be teaching my second lesson, and have been given leeway for some of my own creativity in my lesson. Wish me luck! Have a good weekend everybody!

Spencer