In the Classroom- 5 Weeks

It has been five weeks that I have been helping out in my assigned classroom and school. I was not quite sure what to expect by this time in the year, but I thought that I would be beginning to feel overwhelmed with school that I would not enjoy going to help out my cooperating teacher. I thought that I might be a little bit drained by this point. I am so happy to say this is not the case. I am so amazed at how excited I am to go and help out still. I love being there and I am never checking my watch to see how much more time I have felt. I feel like I am enjoying each minute of being there and this is so reassuring to me. I always wanted to choose a career path that I felt like I loved and I think teaching is that. I love spending the time with the kids, teaching them, helping my cooperating teacher, and being in the classroom. It is great!

This wonderful opportunity has been showing me more and more things that I can use in my future classroom. My cooperating teacher does this thing called "snap, clap, tap" spelling words. What the kids do is they say the word and then spell it out by snapping along, clapping along, and then tapping along. I love this! I think that it is a great way to keep the students active and involved. Another thing that I really liked is a math game they play. The kids sit in a circle and they pass around a box of math problems. They get to shake it up, pick a problem, say the answer and then pass it on. This gives the classroom a more relax feel, give the students the opportunity to do it themselves, play a game, and learn.

I still have still been working with one of the ESL students with his ABC's. I asked my teacher if I could work with him during spelling and reading time. He has come a long way in these five weeks! I knows almost the whole alphabet now! He struggles a little bit with distinguishing between "E" and "V", but that is it! I am planning to bring some shaving cream to class next week to have him write the letter in the shaving cream. I want to change up the way he learns the letter. I want him to be able to write them now, but I want to make sure that we are doing this in a fun way to begin. He sometimes gets frustrated because he does not want to be learning, so I want to find some new ways of approaching learning to make it fun for him.

In ED 203, we have been exploring teaching and schools. I have been able to have the pleasure of talking with my cooperating teacher during gym class and she tells me about what their school requires them to do in the classroom and more. I have learned that they require their students to be doing this reading program where the students read for a certain amount of weeks independently everyday for fifteen minutes, then they will read to their teachers, then to the class and so on. This is to increase students abilities to read. Teachers are required by their principles and more to preform certain actions and teach certain criteria in their classrooms. It has been an eye-opener to actually be in the class and see how the school actually runs, instead of hear about it.

Circle Urban- Round 2

Going to Circle Urban for the second time this semester, I was expecting to do a lot of the things I did the first time. I thought that I would be working with the 7th and 8th graders and helping with their homework. When we arrived, we were brought to the same room to hang out with the 7th and 8th graders, but after a few minutes, we were asked to separate and have a few of us help with the younger children. I looked around and realized quickly that no one wanted to help with the younger children, so I volunteered.

I think most of our Trinity students wanted to stay with the middle school students, because they were planning on playing a game, and some earlier students had had some negative experiences with the younger children before. I remembered how we talked in Ed. 203 about having a good attitude and giving each experience and students the benefit of the doubt, instead of making assumptions before we spend time with them. So, I volunteered and was open to whatever they had in store for us.

I was pleasantly surprised when I got to spend my time with the Kindergartners and 1st-graders. I joined in on their silent play time and was able to interact with the students and play legos, color pictures, and put puzzles together. I made lots of friends very quickly. They loved my "smooth" hair, made me a necklace, and all asked to play with me. To say the least, I felt loved. Next, they had snack time and we helped the children open their snacks and drinks and made conversation. I especially liked that a couple of the children wanted to share with me some dance moves from their African Dance class that they had just attended. That was fun for me to be able to interact with them in this way and learn something new. Overall, we had a great time, but the few hours went by so fast and I would have liked to have spent more time helping out.

In my future classroom, I hope to be able to continue to have the mindset of being open to whatever new experiences and students I will have. People talk, but sometimes if you have an open mind, you can be pleasantly surprised at how different the outcome will be. I was told that the younger children were a bit of a hand full from fellow classmates, but I loved every minute of spending time with them and I thought they were so well behaved. I hope also to remember that God loves all  of his children and I also should. It is important to have God be the center of my classroom and my heart, so that His light and loved can be spread through me to my students.

My First Week In The Classroom

Before I tell you all about my experiences and observations from my first time being in the classroom, I need to tell you a story.

I am a runner and a week ago I was running at a park near the school I am now teacher aiding at. As I ran past the park there was a little girl on a really cool bicycle. So, of course I comment on how awesome her bike was and she in return said thank you. As the conversation progressed I realized that she was a student at the school I am now aiding at. She asked me what teacher I would be helping and she immediately said she did not like her and she yelled a lot. With this remark, I found myself worried about my first day. And so this begins my expectations for this new opportunity at this school and in this classroom.

As we have discussed in Ed 203, we as teachers desire to let each student come into our future classrooms with "blank slates" and open minds to what we will accomplish with each student, despite what others have said and have told you about. With this idea in mind, I put what the young girl at the park had said aside and walked into my cooperating teachers classroom with an open mind and a "blank slate" for her. How did this go for me? I really like my cooperating teacher, within the first few minutes of me being there she already asked me to help the students with their math homework they were working on. As the day progressed I saw different techniques we have been talking about in some of my education classes back at Trinity being used in her classroom. For example, she has a board that has clips with all of the students names on it and they are dragged up or down to show how well certain students behaviors are during the day. Another thing I enjoyed seeing was she has lots of hands-on activities for the 1st-graders to do. They area always rolling dice, cutting out pictures, coloring, using counting lines, drawing pictures, or using some sort of tool to involve them in the actual concept they are learning. Last, I learned that for math, they separate the 1st-graders into 3 groups: advanced, average, and below average math students. The students do not know that they are separated like this, but I think it is a good method to have students that are at similar points together, so that the slower students do not get left behind. When the students had PE, my cooperating teacher and I were given time to chat. She was so welcoming and opened. She explained some things about the classroom, but mostly just emphasized that I am allowed to do whatever I feel comfortable in the classroom. She wanted to get me involved as much as I wanted to be involved and this excited me. From the first week I already have taken over some teaching for her while she was busy talking with the Principle, I have helped students with homework, I have graded papers, I have organized some books and homework assignments, and I have worked with students individually. I really like how my cooperating teacher is so open with me, and willing to let me get involved so quickly into her classroom.

Although I have had a positive experience overall, I would not say that the little girl at the park was completely wrong, my cooperating teacher does yell a little bit too much in my opinion. I understand that being in a classroom of 1st-graders all day can be frustrating, especially when students are getting out of their desks all the time and not listening to instructions the first time, but I really feel strongly that there is a better way to handle situations than just yelling at the students. I also feel there is a difference between being stern and yelling. At some moments, I felt like I was taken back to my childhood after I got into some trouble and I had to sit in my room while my parents yelled at me.I do not think school should be this type of setting. School should be a place where students are respected and displayed the right and healthy way of handling situation and conflict, because not all students will have this privilege at home. One of my goals for this semester in this particular classroom is to be an encouragement to these children. Do not get me wrong, I believe in punishment. I do not plan on letting my future students get away with things, but I hope to take a different approach to conflict, one with less yelling.

In this classroom there are about nine ESL students. One of these students does not know English at all. I have watched him while they are having "independent reading" and he just looks at the pictures. Also, when he has to do any spelling or writing activity, he cannot do it. I asked my cooperating  teacher if it would be appropriate if I took this individual student out of the classroom to work on his ABC's while there are having reading, writing, and spelling. She was so happy when I said this, because she just does not have the time in the day to devote her time to just this one student. I am excited about this new opportunity to hopefully help him learn his ABC's. There is another boy in the class who is a goof and I absolutely love him. The first day he gave me a hug and told me I looked like Katie Perry. Although, I do not agree I look like her, he continued to say it was because we are both beautiful. (I think that I can put up with these compliments all semester.) I am really excited about this group of students. They are wonderful children who are made by the King and are such a joy to my life already.

Overall, I had a great first week and I look forward to learning more in the classroom, from my cooperating teacher, and from my students. I am truly blessed and I look forward to each time I get to stop in the school and help out. I am pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoy teaching so far and I am excited to see how this semester will progress.

Circle Urban- Round 1

I started out my morning with 6am practice, class, work, and then getting ready for Circle Urban. To say the least, I was pretty tired. Although I was extremely tired, I was looking forward to what was going to lie ahead for me and the rest of the group. We had some deep discussions in the back of the van on our way to Circle Urban about people's differences and backgrounds. It was interesting to hear about all the different views and be able to all look forward to meeting some students.

All of the following shaped my expectations for Circle Urban. I was tired, but excited to meet and spend time getting to know people different from myself. I really did not have any other expectations for Circle Urban, because I did not fully understand what the purpose and idea was behind this program and community.

After getting to experience Circle Urban, I found to love it there. When we first arrived we were able to introduce ourselves and spread ourselves out among the students. We played some games to get to know each other and our interests. After the games we grouped off with some students to fill out a worksheet about goals and how to achieve goals. I spent this time with an 8th grade girl who was looking forward to graduating 8th grade and going into high school. We were able to set goals together and discuss many different ways to achieve them. We connected very easily and this was very fun to interact personally with one of the students. Finally, we spent the last bit of time helping with homework and math problems.

I was able to relate different ideas used at Circle Urban to some of the things we talked about in class. Circle Urban was very much hands on, getting the students to interact and have discussions as groups. I also got to see the idea of "think, pair, share" used. These are all ideas that have been discussed when talking about the pioneers of education. Last, they always had music playing in the background during all the activities. I found this very interesting. I agree that music is helpful for students and keeping the classroom upbeat, but I found that it was a bit difficult to hear students presenting and speaking at certain points during the day. I think that music is important to use, but it could have been used less when students were talking. This would have caused more respect and attention for the students.

Last, I can see using many things I experienced in my classroom someday. I loved their enthusiasm when approaching activities. I also liked the beach ball game. They took a beach ball with different questions on it and tossed it around and had to answer one question on the ball. This was a fun and active way to get to know each other. This could be something I could use on the first few days in my new classroom. Also, I really appreciated the opportunity we got at the end of the afternoon to spend time helping students with homework. This really made me feel like a teacher, because that is something I will be doing on a daily basis someday.

Overall, my experience at Circle Urban was great. I was warned we would hear the students asking us if we were going to be coming back next week and sure enough, they did! They were wonderful kids and it was fun being apart of such a cool program for an afternoon.