EDE 4941 REFLECT & CONNECT 2: STUDENTS ARE LIKE A BOX OF CHOCOLATES...

A lot has happened in the last two months. Through the teaching program, I've started to dive into why I believe what I believe as a teacher. This has opened my eyes to things that I thought I knew about teaching but now, my views have totally changed. Things that I thought I would do as a teacher, I quickly discover that is the opposite of what I want done in my classroom. There have been a few particular instances that have opened my eyes and made me feel like the teacher that I want to be and the teacher that I do not want to be.

My CT had to go out of town for a wedding during my third week at the elementary school. I was extremely nervous about how the situation of working with a sub would go. I helped her locate the lesson plan for the day and review everything that needed to be done. I started passing her everything that we needed for the day and he handed it all right back to me and said, “good luck.” This only being my third day in the classroom, I was nervous and unsure as to how this would go. Through this experience, I learned how to get the classes attention and teach them a proper lesson. I believe that being thrown into this situation helped me grow and discover some of my teaching beliefs a lot quicker than I originally would have. One thing that I struggle with my first two weeks were dealing with the problem children that made it their mission to get as many students off task as possible. When I was finally able to control these children, it made me feel like the teacher that I want to be. This reflects my beliefs about being a teacher because I want to be able to control my classroom in a calm manner with no voice raising and this was the first week that I was able to do that.

One thing that I was looking forward to gaining through the teaching program was how to instruct children properly when it comes to teaching and helping them complete assignments. I have never been good at giving directions. I usually know how I want things done in my head and expect people to read my mind and have it done that way. I quickly realized that this cannot be the case when working with certain types of students, especially kindergartners . In my classroom, I have quite a few children that are ESE and have language delays or are considered immensely remedial. When giving my instructions, I was rambling off how to complete the assignment and some of the students were understanding my directions with no problem. Not too long into the assignment, I realized that a few of my remedial students were not even close to finishing the assignment like a majority of the other students. I decided to move these specific children to a table in the back of the room and started giving them step by step instructions. While the other students who are self-sufficient were completing the assignment, the other students and I went through the assignment together and helped each other out so that it got completed properly. Through this, I could pull all the children aside that needed help and give them the attention that they need while still watching over the others. As a teacher, you must have a plan for how you are going to help the students that cannot help themselves. This reflects my teaching beliefs by giving struggling students the attention that they needed so they could feel successful in the classroom.

Participating in the fall festival was something I did not think I would enjoy as much as I did. In my eyes, teaching is all about working with the students during the day and going home to your personal life in the evening. After seeing all the teachers interact with the students after-hours showed me how important teachers are to the overall lives of every student. Teachers were recognizing students that they had 3-4 years ago and the students recognizing and give them so much love and attention. You can tell that these teachers have made in impact in these students lives forever. After witnessing this, I was wondering how I would be able to do this myself. It wasn’t until students from my class and other classes that I have spent time with came up to me, talked to me, and told me how much they loved me, that I realized I’ve already made this impact in students’ lives. This made me feel like the teachers that I wanted to be. Just because you teach one grade level does not mean that you do not have an impact in other grade levels as well. This opened my eyes to how important teachers are in the lives of the students. The reflects on my teaching beliefs because school unity is important in touching as many children's lives as possible. When you can make connections with students, even with students not in your class or grade level, you become a confidant for the students who need it most.

Recently, my classroom has acquired a special student. He came from another classroom within the school and was causing a lot of problems for the teacher and other students. Administration decided that it would be best to move him into the classroom with my CT. He is very physical and likes to mock people that try to tell him something he does not want to do. He also mocks you constantly. This students has punched/push students on multiple occasions. During this particular occasion, I was out in the field for recess with all the students. This child was not playing the right way. We have three classroom rules when it comes to the field: no playing on trees, no playing with sticks, and no playing in the dirt. He started to play on the tree and I told him to get off. He mocked me and told me I was not his teacher. He saw me as I starting to walk towards him and he decided to jump off the tree and grab a big stick. Knowing history of aggression, I decided to lead all the students away from him and tell him to drop the stick. He was not responding well to this. He began to run at me with the stick and I grabbed it, pulled it out of his hand, and held it as he began to scream. He ran over to the dirt and started picking it up and throwing it around. At this point, I began to lose my cool. I walked over to him and grabbed his hand. I began to walk him over to the bench so we could talk. He started hitting me, yelling at me, and then ran away as I tried to talk to him. I began raising my voice at him to come back and told him I would call the office if he did not come back. In this instance, I did not feel like the teacher that I want to be. Usually students with these problems do not respond well to yelling. When I raised my voice at him, this caused him to shut me out even more than he already had. This also could scared the other children in the class as well. Even when one student is acting out, you must take all the other children into consideration. This data points to growth through proving that I recognized the proper and improper ways to handle these types of situations.. Even though I did not handle the situation in the way I wanted, this opened my eyes to different ways that I can deal with this confrontation differently next time.

One of my first few weeks in the classroom, I was helping teach sight words with a small group of students. These students were the individuals that were struggling with learning the words on list one. Some of these students still get letters such as b and d or m and w mixed up or leaving e’s off the ends of words. At this point, these students were already supposed to be starting list two. The standard protocol is to teach the students list by list. When breaking out the list and going over the words with the students, these remedial students were recognizing words on the second list that they have not even seen yet. Trying to teach these words in order made me realize that this is something that I do not want to do as a teacher. Once again, I did not take the developmental level of my students into account. These children might be a little behind but with the right attention and developmental insight these children will learn these words and be ready to move on with the other students. This data points to growth in my teaching practices by opening my eyes to the developmental levels of each student and how some children need to be taught differently and given extra attention to succeed. You can not expect all of your students to learn the same way.

When doing my first observation, I planned out a morning meeting for my students. They are used to doing full morning meetings so I could do a complete lesson. The greeting portion and morning message went well. The students did an awesome job of recognizing and circling the site words that were on the poster. It all started to go downhill when the share portion started. The students lost interest very quickly and began to goof off as the others were sharing. After watching the video of my lesson back, I realized that I did not take the developmental and social level of my students into account when planning this part of the lesson. This did not make me feel like the teacher that I wanted to be. When students of this age share with each other, I learned that the pair share method is the best way to go. Students attention is focused on something the whole time and it is easier to grab their attention back when the share time is over. This points to growth in my teaching practice by showing that I understand how to properly occupy students attention at all time. You can not focus on just one students and ignore the rest. Keeping an eye out for all is a trait of a great teacher.

Being a teacher means that:

1. Giving clear instruction and expectations are the basis of student success

2. Keeping cool is important for your students comfort level in the classroom.

3. You have to teach based off of the students developmental levels.

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