Meeting the Principal: Today was the 1st day of field experience. We started the day off meeting with Principal Finch. It was great to meet him and see his commitment to providing a school atmosphere where there is respect (for all people), love of learning and where students do their best. He mentioned that at this time in our pursuit of this career is a unique opportunity to be "in" the moment as we observe and practice a little bit, but to be out of it observing and reflecting on how we will teach in the future. He encouraged us to be really reflective during this time. Thus, the reason for this daily journal. Although in and of itself it's not required, I feel it will be important to me in my reflective process. He compared our experience now to being on a balcony overlooking the dance below in which we are performing.
In the classroom today we had a substitute. I could see that despite her not being the regular teacher, the students know their responsibility to be respectful. I also noticed this in how they treated us as visitors to their classroom. I realized in seeing this that my preconceived notion that 6th graders were scary wasn't accurate. The students respected one another and respected us teachers. I also noticed while observing their interactions with one another that they function as a community. As I saw one student encouraging another,...or one student asking of another's well being after a fall, I was excited to see that in a classroom of many diverse students, you can have all students work together, care for one another and be a tight-knit community of learners.
The Teaching: First students began reading. Then students were taught vocabulary words relating the the Great Flood. Once the PM group joined the class, Marla and I taught math. We taught improper and mixed number fractions. As I watched the teaching methods, I saw an opportunity for students to become more engaged during the review of their vocab words. I thought it may have been more engaging if groups of students were to act out the vocabulary words and have the other students guess. However, I also realized as the day went on, that lots of material has to be covered in a short amount of time and that teacher's need to keep quite a tight schedule.
Classroom Environment/ Setup: The desks are set up as cooperative tables of about 5-6 students. There is a mini-computer station in the classroom that consists of 4 computers. There is a classroom library of picture books, young adult novels or chapter books, and resource books. The teacher has an "alcove" which seems like a place to meet with students individually, store supplies, and I also noticed some CD players back there. The environment of this classroom, as I mentioned before, is one of unity. I hope to be able to create that same type of environment in my future classroom.
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