Post 5

Today was my last day at the elementary school. It was sad to be leaving but I had a great experience and I’m glad I got the chance to work with these children. Today was great because I only had 2 children that I was working with, when I usually have 4. I realized how much easier it is to work with just a few students and how much more they get out of the exercises because they feel like they are getting more attention and they can stay on task. I know that for teachers it is rare that you ever get prolonged one on one time with a student or even time with them in small groups. I felt like I got to know their personalities better today because I wasn’t wasting my time trying to keep 4 kids on task, and in their seats and paying attention to the lesson.

I think this experience has helped to shape my teacher identity tremendously. I have learned about ways to control the children as a class and to get their attention quickly without yelling out to them. One trick that my teacher uses is to turn the lights off, this immediately quiets the kids down and everyone looks toward the light switch to see what happened. This provides the teacher a few minutes of attention to give directions or tell the kids something important. Another one of these tricks is the teacher holds up a peace sign with her 2 fingers and says “peace and quiet”, all the students stop what they’re doing and hold up their peace signs until the whole class is doing it and being quiet. One of the last ways I observed that the teacher gets her student’s attention is by saying “Stop, Look, and Listen…” in the tune of ‘skunk in the barnyard’ when the children hear this they all go “OK” at the same time and pay attention. These are fun ways to get the kids to listen and to pay attention without having to yell or talk over them.

In this classroom when a child answers a question perfectly, the teacher will say “You hit the nail..” and the class will finish “Right on the head!”. I think this is a great way to reward a child for participating and getting an answer correct, because it does not have the same effect as hearing “good job, your right, that’s correct” it gets the whole class involved and makes the student who answered correctly feel proud.

During this experience I have really noticed how yelling at the children as a means of control fails to work. In the art room, next to the reading room where we prepare for our visit, the teacher is constantly screaming at her class. It is obvious that the children do not respect her or listen to her because they continue to talk to one another while she screams. It makes me think that she hates her job because all she does all day is yell at her students, and it never works to get them under control. I do not want to be a teacher that must yell at my students to keep them quiet. I really valued this experience and can’t wait to get back into the school setting to work with more students.