Little Falls High School Observation Report

I had the privilege of going to the school I from graduated last year Little Falls High School. LFHS’ mission statement is “Little Falls High School, with community support, will graduate students who are well-rounded, respectable citizens ready to embrace the challenges and responsibilities of being productive members of an ever-evolving society.” (LFHS staff, Unknown). The class I observed was a College Now Western Civilization II class. The class had six total students five of the six were seniors ready to get out including MV and one junior getting the most out of their time in the high school. Four of the five seniors were male including MV. My goal for MV was to find out if he had anything wrong with his mental health and his cognitive

The other thing I noticed about MV was he didn't need to take notes he would just remember the topic the teacher would cover and test as the second highest in the class. MV had one of the top 3 in the senior class in this history class. MV also did not speak to anyone during class or before class. More often than not he was being picked on by the other boys in the History class, MV didn’t seem to really shoot back at the other boys so what they were doing wasn’t really busting balls but it didn’t quite look like bullying to me regardless if every one of my instinct was to stop it unfortunately the guidelines of the project I could not get involved. I hope reporting it to the teacher was enough. MV seemed not to have many friends when walking into the school in the mornings and leaving after his class MV seemed to not really talk to anyone just would walk around with his head down. Which made me assume he may be a victim of bullying. However he doesn't show many of the symptoms that other student being bullied according to Jodee Blanco whom

There is also a chance I was just observing at a bad time for the student. Regardless the student seemed to be consistently unhappy. MV also has many symptoms of depression according to the National Institute of Mental Health such as: “Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” mood, Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness, Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities,Decreased energy or fatigue, and Appetite and/or weight changes.” (NIMH, 2016, signs and symptoms section) MV shows each of these symptoms a daily basis. For example the loss of interest in favorite activities, as previously mentioned MV enjoyed soccer on a separate occasion the teacher and I were talking about a soccer game involving his favorite team very close to him and he did not join into our conversation like he did previously. I believe his depression may be caused by his bullying and another major factor may be involving his family. MV would talk to the teacher about his family in the mornings after the weekend and two things stood out to me more than anything: MV never mentioned his father and whenever he would talk about his mother the word beer would also pop up at some point. Which leads me to believe that MV’s parents split up and his father has no visitation or his father may have passed. Either case however also leads to the idea