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.