Our Elementary Visit

What an exciting week!
I loved every second of being in the elementary school Monday! The excitement that filled the air was marvelous. I truly am among wonderful people in this class. As we walked down the hallways we saw all the personalized artwork from the students on the walls. All the students stopped and stared, waving as we walked by.
Four of us walked into the first classroom. It was second grade math, and ironically we were all in the same elementary education math class. The students came in after their lunch. Normally, the time after lunch is when the students are more tired. But our teacher had them all up and working immediately. She was using the new method of doing math, and the four of us onlookers were surprised to see it was exactly what we were learning in class. She had an eye on each student the entire time, it was very impressive. They then got into three groups, one group was learning a game from someone's grandmother who had come in, one group was playing on the iPods, and the other was getting individual help with the math from her. Every student was very respectful towards her and did exactly what they were told to do. Once the students with her had a grasp of the math, she had a student come to us individually and teach us how the math works. I absolutely loved it, I do not think there was a moment I was not smiling.
Teachers are some of the greatest at multitasking. We could see how she strategically placed the groups, how she set her desk so she was able to see everything that went on in the classroom, and how she decorated the class to make the learning environment more fun for the students. I was thoroughly impressed with what we saw and what we learned from the other schools.

Week 6

This week we are starting lesson (learning) plans. For me this seems a bit difficult. I feel as if we should be farther along in our program to start this. I am very worried about making mistakes on these. Also I know when we put these in an actual classroom, time management in the classroom is very new to us. How will we know if the students need more or less time on an assignment?
Sometimes I feel as if I'm not ready. I know it will be awhile until we are fully responsible for a classroom, but the stress of it all is overwhelming.
Big news, I can not work during student teaching my last year of college. This is a bit difficult for me. This means I will have to train someone to take over my position at Thomas Jefferson and take time off from Chick Fil A. Hopefully all goes well.
We are learning all the different theologies on how we can and will teach. I hope to figure this out, but when I have a little more experience teaching. The one thing I want to keep from all of this is my compassionate side and kindness. I'm going to learn how to incorporate this in a classroom without being seen as a pushover by reading of other teacher's experiences with kindness and "being too nice".

We Start to Ask the Big Questions

Structure is important. Lesson plans are important. Organization is important. Being prepared is important.
This Monday on September 14 I had my first true experience with teaching where I wasn't assisting a professional. I was asked by one of my professors to help out with a theater program she teaches at Thomas Jefferson Grammar School. There was a problem with communication, so only ten students had signed up. I arrived at the school and things got a bit hectic. Thirty students got off of the bus. We walked into the theater, and my professor split them up into two groups. Third grade to Fifth grade in one group, Second grade and below in another, and I was head of the younger ones. Now my professors plan was to teach me what I needed to know and do after the first day. I was completely unprepared. Fortunately I improved and pulled through and the first day was a success, but it would have been so much less stressful if I had a set structure that I stuck to. I first hand saw why not only the teacher needs to know what they will be teaching, but if they don't the students will run all over the teacher and have no respect for them. It was an intense day.

I love my education class. I look forward to this class every day. A class that's two hours long seems like it would just keep on dragging on, but I wish we could stay longer. My professors are captivating. They teach us the knowledge we'll need in our future. With every new point they make in class, the more I start to judge my other teacher's strategies. I can pick out exactly where the teacher goes wrong in the classroom instead of just saying "They're a bad teacher.".

We are learning how to teach in different ways. Yes content knowledge is good, yes using technology works, but we have to do this with pedagogy (teaching methods used well). It is not enough to just "know your stuff" or put a student in front of a computer and tell them to work. There are methods we need to use to be effective in our classroom.

Here's what I don't understand. We compare students to each other, and this is in no way fair. We should judge a person based on their own success from their past experiences, not another students past experiences or success. Not one child is the same, it's time we start treating them as individuals. I believe we should test each student differently. My twin sister has a photographic memory. She can memorize and test well, but not truly understand the content. I can study for hours and not know all the content she knows, but I will have a better understanding of what is going on in the content.

"How do I know what they know?" This is what I will focus on in the classroom. Not the memorization, but the deeper understanding of the content.

Everything is changing so quickly. I can barely keep with with everything going on! I keep thinking how things are going to change in the future, but the future is already here. Technological advances are happening now, it is not something we have to wait for. Of course this means we will be using this technology in our every day lives, school is just a part of life this will be integrated into.

Every week I get more and more overwhelmed. Being a teacher seemed easy to me when I was school. The teacher would talk, grade papers, then answer any questions about homework. That is not what a teacher is. Teacher's, if they are in the field for the right reasons, are wonderful. They have such big hearts for us. They could sit there and test us and do nothing else. Technically they would not being doing anything wrong, their job is to teach the material. The ones whose hearts are truly in this try to have every one of their students understand. They not only want to see their students pass, but they want them to grow as a person. I want to be that. I will be that kind of teacher. I am not doing this because I absolutely love the material I am teaching. I am doing this because I want to watch my students grow and help them along their way. Teaching is so important, I just never realized how big of an impact teachers have on so many lives until now.

Reflections Reflections Reflections......

Gosh these first few weeks of starting my education courses have been intense. Let me just say that being a teacher is no easy task. All of the new education majors attended a meeting about all of our deadlines, what the next few years will look like, what all we need to know, scores we have to take and so on. My goodness was I stressed out about everything. I felt like pulling out my hair! As teachers there is so much pressure about how we appear to be and the standards we are put up to not only as teachers, but also as citizens. Overwhelmed has a whole new meaning to me.

As I start my first education course I also started my course on teaching math to elementary school students. I finally understood the content, but did anyone know how hard it is to explain something? There are wrong terms that may not mess them up at the moment, but later on the students will be confused and have to re-learn everything if I have taught it wrong. I know in the end this will be worth it. All of my late night studying and throwing myself into my work will lead to success. But I am so ready to get started. Even after all of the overwhelming information I am still trying to process a week later, I still can not wait to be a teacher.

P.S. (Did you know there can be a submit button you have to keep pressing on different pages until the assignment actually goes through? Lesson learned)