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"...I was immediately nervous that we weren't going to live up to their expectations of us."1/10/2018 It’s been an eventful few days. Since I last blogged we have had the opportunity to visit the school twice. Day one was yesterday and for everyone else, it seemed to go just swimmingly, but for Brittany, my teaching partner, and I it could only be described as chaotic. When we arrived at our classroom for the day we were shocked to find that it was twice as full of students as it was the day before when we were shown our rooms. They had combined two classes into one, and as soon as we walked in, the teachers immediately gave us the floor. This was a bit of a shock because we were under the impression that we would be observing for most of the day. But, as all teachers do, we tried our best to be flexible and we read our book out loud to the class. I fumbled my way through the Italian and Brittany got the easy task of reading the English. We incorporated some echo reading with them and told our teachers that tomorrow we would have more activities. We thought for the rest of the day we would be observing their teaching method but as soon as we were finished, we were ushered to another combined class of roughly fifty students and asked to do the same thing. By the end of the day we ended up reading our book to four different fourth grade classes, one fifth grade class, and one first grade. It was an unexpected challenge because the first graders were much too young to read our book, and the fifth graders were advanced beyond it. We improvised the best we could, and the students positivity and excitement made our day much easier to swallow, but by the end of it we were overwhelmed by so many children, and so many teachers pulling us every which way.
Later, the teachers took us out for a catered lunch at a restaurant, and were very hospitable to us. We tried our best to communicate with them, but most of them spoke very limited English. Following lunch, we met them again at the school and discussed how our days had gone, and what our plans were going forward. Brittany and I made it clear that our book was specifically designed for fourth grade, and our materials that we had brought were only enough for one class and they assured us that the next day we would be able to stay put. Today when we arrived at the school our classroom again had two classes combined into one, which totaled 47 students. Before we could even speak the teacher immediately started showing us several posters and projects and said they were a gift to us. One by one, a handful of students approached us at the front of the room with their own handmade posters depicting Buffalo pictures, and information. Our teacher explained that she didn’t assign this as homework, she just told them if they had spare time they could feel free to look up some information. I personally was overwhelmed at their willingness to do this on their own time, and I knew we had made an impact yesterday because some of the posters showed elements from our book including “Let’s go Buffalo!”, pizza and chicken wings, and snow. It was such a touching moment that right off the bat that I was immediately nervous that we weren’t going to live up to their expectations of us. I conducted the first part of our activity, which was a vocabulary game, and that was daunting for me. Given that I am slightly behind in my program, I have yet to participate in a field placement , so today was to be my first official lesson in front of a class. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t feel nervous at all, but I think I can attribute that to knowing that if I really messed up, neither the teachers nor students were likely to notice since we spoke separate languages. I started out by writing an English vocabulary word from our book on the chalkboard with the corresponding Italian word. Then I had a stack of picture cards that matched each word. The teacher taught me to say “cosè?” which meant “What is this?” So with each picture I asked the students to tell me what the word was in Italian, and then I followed that up with “In English, we say….” Then they repeated the English word. I made the game more challenging as they started catching on and only left the English words on the board before asking them to tell me the word on each picture in English. Then I taped the picture cards on the board and gave each student one English word. One by one, they came up to the front and matched their word to the picture. Then I asked “Is this correct?” and they all said it was, so I then pointed to each picture and had them chant out loud each word. By the end of the activity, I was shocked to see how quickly they picked up both the English words, and the ability to match them as well. Not only could they say and read the words, but also they now knew what they meant, and that was a gratifying feeling. After my vocabulary lesson, Brittany conducted a second read-aloud with the students which included them having physical copies of our book in front of them to follow along. Then we finished up the day with a craft that was supposed to be my second lesson plan, but ended up being morphed into one full day of teaching. For the craft, I gave each student a blue sheet of construction paper, a printed photo of a Buffalo landmark, snowflake foam stickers and glitter glue. The object was for them to make their own wintery scenes of Buffalo, and I think they ended up liking that the most, just because they got to play with glue and stickers. Some of them used the glitter glue to spell out our names and many of them wrote “Let’s go Buffalo!” on them, as that was a component of our book. It was amazing to give them an opportunity to express their own creativity and be able to observe their energy and individuality. Reflecting on today, I would have to say that I feel beyond pleased with how the day went. I couldn’t have imagined it going any smoother, despite the fact that the room was so jammed with students that it was nothing short of chaos. I had such a good time today, and it reaffirmed my choice in this career, which is huge for me. Sometimes I wonder if I have the patience or the capability to teach students, but today reminded me why I chose the field I did, and how much I already love it.
3 Comments
Julie Henry
1/11/2018 12:48:23 am
Jessica, I can't believe that your first lesson was in front of 47 Italian students. You will be able to tell this story your whole life. You are an amazing story-teller, and I feel like I am there with you when you describe your interactions. Keep up the amazing blogging!!
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Tricia
1/11/2018 09:02:59 pm
So glad it reaffirmed you want to teach!
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Dr. Patti (Exceptional Education)
1/12/2018 06:23:50 pm
Thanks for sharing about your time in the classroom in such great detail! I am so glad you had the chance to be "thrown into" such amazing teaching experiences. It is awesome that you not only enjoyed it and were successful, but that you felt it really reaffirmed your desire to be a teacher. That's fantastic! :)
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AuthorI am a third year Elementary Education student at Buffalo State College and a member of the Muriel A. Howard Honors program and Kappa Delta Pi Education Honor Society. My hobbies include reading, watching movies, hanging out with friends and family, and being a full time cat lady. I have always been passionate about working with children and hope that this program will give me insight as to how children in other countries are nurtured and develop. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to connect with fellow Education students and form lasting connections within my program ArchivesCategories |