Tales of the Student Teacher

Hello Everyone.

I finally have had some time to put down some pictures of my class and me in it. I'm sure there is some legal stipulation that says I can't have pictures of these kids, so if you know them, please don't tell their parents.

As for my classroom. Things have been interesting. I've been teaching full time now for a few weeks. It's been great! However, the perfectionist in me has had to take a deep breath and just get things covered. I haven't had time to be really interesting or do anything amazing that anyone outside of our classroom would notice. I think I've kept the students entertained though. The other day we did a conga line and in rhythmic way sang "e-a-r ... e-a-r... errrrr" so we could remember the spelling rule that the letters e-a-r make a errrr sound like in earn, yearn. It was fun. The students loved doing the conga around the room.

My experience so far has definitely had it's share of challenges. Some of you know I worked at a school with kids who have behavorial disorders for about 6 months. I learned a lot during that time about discipline and how normal discipline techniques on these kinds of kids of the opposite affect as they do on children without behavorial disorders. Well, you'd think that experience would have helped me, but it's so different in a classroom where you have one student with those problems and the rest are complete angels.

My good friend and student with down syndrome... for legal purposes we'll call him Luke, has had a rough couple of weeks. This last week was full of moments where I wondered how the heck I ever could help him.

I walked outside one morning to get the students, ready for a perfectly sweat free day of teaching, and to my amazement and horror, Luke was chasing the other kids around swinging his backpack like a slugger on the NY Mets. The kids are so well behaved they were trying to stay in line but still duck his painful blows. Some were telling him to stop and others were just beginning to enter a state of shock. That was Monday. OnTuesday Luke threw a tantrum in the room and after writing on the wall with his crayon, he threw the entire bag and hit one of my students square in the face. The bag broke open and other crayons bounced off of her like a rubber ball and spread like machine fire hitting two or three other students. They just kept on coloring because they didn't want to get into trouble. After that moment, I took Luke into the hallway and he calmed down long enough to distract me and then he ran down the hallway. When he rounded the corner, of course before me because I was not going to run (that's what he wants and I wasn't wearing a sports bra) he then proceded to leave the building. I wasn't sure where he went and I had left 16 children in the room with a teachers aid who I feel is notwonderful for me to have to tell my Assistant Principal during my internship that I lost I student. It is a little comical now, but being that it was my b-day and only Tuesday, I was feeling a little peeved after the whole thing.

Other than that, things are going well. I can't wait until I have my own classroom and a pay check to go with it. This working for free stuff is pretty hard to handle.







Ahh, the classroom photo. ha ha ha

Till next time.

Ciao