Teaching the ABC's

In my field experience I was able to work with two students that were behind the rest of the class. My first was a boy who started school school very early because his mother did not want to have three children at home all day so she fought to put him in kindergarten. The problem is he was not ready to be in school all day and did not have the skill the other students did. I could tell that he was younger because he was very clingy and wanted to be attached to me all the time. My other student was a girl who moved from Alabama. She had no since of anything that was going on because she has a language barrier. Her mother speaks a form of Guatemalan but it is not Spanish and can not communicate with anyone at the school. We have tried to test the girl in Spanish, but she did worse than in English. Twice a week I would take both of these students out for an hour and a half. During this time we would go over our alphabet. After about four weeks my little guy was really getting the hang of recognizing his letter but the girl was not. I could show her the same letter right after another and she would say a different letter each time. I could not relate the alphabet to anything she knew. At the end of the semester the boy could recognize each letter and its sounds. My little girl on the other hand never got her letters, some of them she did get but others never happened. It was rewarding working with these kids.

Power Down Day

My power down day was a funny experience. The first part was finding out what day to try this experiment out on. I pick 24 hours that started on Friday February 11 after class and went until Saturday 12. The first part of the night was not that bad. I have choir practice and went to a comedian and did not miss my phone one bit. The problem stated when I was in my room and had nothing to do. At first my roommate and I were just talking which became deep and fun. It was good being able to talk to someone without having a text message come up and ruin the conversation. It felt more real and genuine in that since. After our conversation I had nothing to do so I just went to bed. I slept all night and most of the morning. When I woke up I went to lunch with my friends that I found once I got there. They had wondered where I was all night and day because they couldn’t find me. After lunch I just slept until my time was over. When I finally checked my phone I have 22 text messages, 10 missed calls, and 15 Facebook notifications. The experience was a memorable one and one I would not like to do again.

My Classroom of Diversity

I think this picture is a picture that speaks more to than just teachers. The children are a representation of the world we live in and show how we may live one day. I feel that they are representing a day when we as a world can come together and be one world. I personally want to teach in a school that is diverse. This stems from me going to a school that was that way. I went to Copley-Fairlawn School Distract my whole educational career. In the school distract I grew up with people from all different backgrounds and religious beliefs. I loved my school because it taught me about different cultures early on in my life and helped me to understand them more. It made me more than tolerant, but understanding of people that were different from me.
I want to teach in this kind of district because I think it is what I am comfortable with. I think my ideas there will be taken in to consideration and followed through in this kind of a distract, but on the other hand I could see how other school districts more. I think if I do take this to a district where there is only on type of culture, religious beliefs, and ethnicities they would be more threatened about my ideas. They are the ones who need to broaden their views and opinions. I also think it would be hard to relate the topic to these students because they have no references. I think it would be a challenging that I am willing to take.

GIS and Science

The GIS is a good teaching tool http://gisandscience.com/interviews/ because it is monitored by professional scientist. The site is also good because it has many resources that teachers can use to help find information about science. The information is also current within the last couple of years. I like it because it gives other places to find information on different sites. When you use it will reference you to YouTube videos. They have interviews with scientist who have study certain areas of science. It gives you their first hand experience in their study.
The down fall to this website is the level of science that is on the website. The site is a higher level of difficulty. I want to be an elementary school teacher and this website is to advance for my grade level. The books on the site are also a higher level so I would not be able to use it with my classes. If I was to use it with my classes I would have to take it down to layman’s terms for my students to even start to get it.
I probably would not use it for my classes because of the level of difficulty. It would not benefit my class or me. I feel it will make more work for me in the long run.

Diversity Teaching

Teaching diversity at a young age is very important. http://www.suite101.com/content/six-tips-for-teaching-diversity-a30336 This helps students understand the importance for differences and the joy of them too. Different ways to do this is by celebrating other cultural holidays. Have fun with this because it will be educational and enjoyable. Also, take time to do more than one cultures so that others do not feel left out. I don’t want to teach them religion, but inform them of different kinds of cultures. When I do this I think it will they will learn to respect other cultures. I also feel this will show them tolerance for difference and also make them closer as a class.
I would teach different cultures though foods, dance, and outfits. A hands-on approach is the best way because it lets them be in gulfed in the culture. It will show them that our cultures are not so different from their own. By doing this in younger years, by the time they are old it will not seem so hard to put themselves in others shoes. These activities will be lifelong experiences that will affect them through school and beyond. Teaching diversity is the way to make a well brought up citizens in our communities.

The Importance of Diversity

Final Post

My experience in my field placement was truly insightful. I learned a lot about teaching and myself. In the aspect of teaching I learned how to deal with different situations. In my class we had a child with ADD and who liked to act out. I learned how to deal with that in an affective way of calming the situation and not getting the other kids to upset at the same time. I also learned how to stay calm when a million things are going wrong at the same time. Being in the classroom taught me patience. I already had it, but only with one or two kids at a time, but having it with 15 or more is a little more challenging. I learned also that I can be a teacher because I loved being in that classroom so much. Everyday that I had to be there early I did not mind it because see my students smiling faces made it worth it. I feel I felt being with these students I will never forget. One thing that is almost definite is that I do not want to teach preschool. I loved being there, but I want to stay with the my students all day and also make up more of a lesson plan. In preschool I might teach different classes every other day which might make it difficult to make lesson plans because you do not want one class to become farther that than the other class. I loved my experience at my preschool it made my choice of becoming a teacher even more prevalent than it had already been.