Prompt 3

Being a teacher you need to realize that your students are all different in that they might need special resources. Some children might need resources such as translations for assignments and or more time on tests and quizzes. This makes being a teacher more difficult because you need to spend more time on those children and pay attention to the other children as well. This is a challenge but it can be overcome, this has to do with time management, and as long as you can do that you will be fine in seeing that your children get all the resources they deserve.

Roger Williams Middle School !!

            Today is my third day at Roger Williams Middle School, and I am having so much fun. The teacher Ms. Healey is unbelievably nice and I love the way she handles her classroom. The children in this classroom are extremely nice and love when I come every Wednesday. Some of the children are a little tough but want the help and they won’t refuse it. Today in class they are reading a new story in their literature books. In her reading lessons she chooses one child at a time to read a paragraph, and not one child has refused to read. In the reading she relates the main idea to everyday circumstances so that the children understand it a little better.
            My last visit here was a little rough for me it was the week before thanksgiving and the children were writing a 3 page essay about what they were thankful for. One of the children broke down in the middle of class and started to cry. This child was upset because he didn’t have the nice and beautiful things to say about his family like their teacher Ms. Healey. With him being upset Ms. Healey did everything in her power to make him feel better and get back to his work. It then hit me how underprivileged some of these children really are. This is what I want to do; I want to be this teacher that is here to help, here to make the tears go away and here to see all the children happy. I want to help the children to become whatever they want to be in like, and I want them to know that they can succeed no matter what. Words cannot describe the experience that I have received here and I have asked Ms. Healey to stay after the completion of our semester. She was very pleased to hear this and I’m very pleased to be here.
            When I first started out in the VIPS program I was disappointed and frustrated in the elementary school. Now in the Middle School I don’t want to leave. This classroom has made my decision for what kind of teacher I wish to be. Finally!

Shaping my Teacher Idenity (Prompt 5)

Being at this school has changed my outlook on teaching. Going into this service learning with a clear mind I thought this was going to be easy, I thought wrong. These children have showed me that I may not be able to teach Elementary children. I have change my perspective a lot but maybe for the better. This class has helped me to realize that I would like to be a Secondary Education teacher. I have opened my mind up to a different level of teaching and I think I'm going to enjoy it. I can't wait to start at the high school/ middle school to see what that is like, maybe I will enjoy it better. We will see !!

Day 4 At Robert F Kennedy

Today at Robert F Kennedy Elementary school, the children were to listen to a book on tape then proceed to take a test on the book and on the vocabulary. After sitting with all the children and listening to the story, I took two children out into the hallway to help them with their test. I had to read them the questions and help them to find the answers in the book. My teacher told me that these particular children have trouble with reading the question and then connecting it to the story, so that is where I came into help. The children did very well on their test, and they did not seem to be struggling throughout the whole test. However, when we got to the section on the vocabulary they got a little stumped on a few of the words. This was probably because the children were not allowed to use their books for the vocabulary section, so this is why it was a little harder. Overall the test was a success and the teacher was very happy to see that they were doing better on these book tests. Next week I believe I will be working with them again, hopefully! They were a joy to work with!

Prompt 4

I have a lot of personal experience with children. When I was in High School, I was involved in a Vocational Program. This was a three year program in an area of work that you would want to pursue. I was apart of the Child Development program, which consisted of a full day pre-school which we as students ran. We had a lot of responsibility and it was a lot of work but I learned a great deal from it. I learned how to write a lesson plan, how to control a classroom of 30 children from the ages 3,4,5, I learned how to set up teacher parents conferences, and learned how to prepare for them. this program helped me so much to actually see if this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. It was the best decision i have ever made, and i would not change anything about it.
In this classroom we had some children that did not speak English, one student who was from Italy did not speak any English what so ever, so we learned how to work with her to help her to understand what was going on in the classroom and to help her learn English in baby steps. this was a big step for me and my fellow students to overcome, it was stressful and a lot of work but together we worked through it. Now when I was in this program I was 16 years old, which to me is a young age to be running a pre-school, but in fact we did. I got a lot of experience from this program that will never leave me. Such as lesson plans, I have a 3" binder full of lesson plans that I have done for the three years that i was in the program. This was a lot of work for me to do as a sophomore, junior and senior in high school, but it was worth it. My Senior year in the program we had to go off onto Field sights to observe classrooms and to teach some of our lessons that we had put together. This was interesting to me as well because this is something I thought I would never be doing in high school, but now I'm doing it again.
I have had a lot of experience in this area of teaching and observing and I'm glad I got a head start so I was not lost when I joined this class. I walk into Robert F Kennedy, today not afraid and ready to do whatever the teacher tells me too. I am confident that I can do anything, and it is going to stay like that for awhile.

"An Indian Father's Plea"

In this letter "An Indian Father's Plea" he speaks about his son Wind-Wolf, who is a 5 year old boy in kindergarten. In this letter his father talks about his son being behind in his class only because in his culture they learned things differently. Wind-Wolf does know how to count and he knows his numbers, he was taught mathematics, he knows his days and months but only by the native tribal calender. He knows a lot about birds and knows about some of the planets. He is a very smart child but in a different way than all the other children. In Wind-Wolfs family they value there culture, religion, and beliefs about there tribe. In the classroom they do not learn about any of this they don't learn about any Indian culture, and this is what the dad is writing a letter about. He wants the children to learn about this culture so that they are familiar with what goes on and how other people live there lives. This connects with what we are learning today, how we are learning that we need to respect everyone in the classroom and all beliefs. We need to focus on all the children to make sure that they are getting the same help everyone else is, and we need to make sure that no one falls behind and that everyone is on the same page. This is what I got from this reading on "An Indian Father's Plea".

First Day at Robert F Kennedy Elementary School

Today was my first day to attend Robert F Kennedy Elementary School. When I arrived there I notice that the school was very poor looking, but had a certain comfort to it. There were a lot of pictures and paintings on the walls of the children's work which was very comforting. Walking threw the school everyone was very friendly in saying hello, even the children. however I did notice as I was walking threw the building that were was a lot of teachers yelling, mostly every teacher was yelling at their children which Idid not like that. Maybe this is how they feel they have to get threw to the children but I don't feel that way. I do feel that discipline is a huge factor in this school, they are very hard on the children, but most of the children need that push. Getting into the classroom the teacher was very nice, she seemed very overwhelmed but I would be to. The children were very polite some more than others. For most of the time that I was there, I took 5 children aside and did a reading lesson with them. They each took a turn reading the pages in the book and then we did a reading response on it. We then went back into the class room where I helped a bunch of children make note cards for their vocabulary words. As i researched my school a little more on infoworks.com, I saw that in the school year 2008-2009 the 4th graders were more porficient than they have been. This means that the school is getting better in there learning and the children are learning more.Today was a very productive day with the children, and I am looking forward to going next Friday.