4.12.16

I have spent a lot of time in my Clinical Classroom at North Elementary in Kings Mountain.  At first I wasn't very thrilled because the school was a 30 minute drive and I was placed in a kindergarten classroom, but I have come to love my placement.  I love the school.  It is a small school with a close knit faculty. The teachers have all been welcoming and friendly.  My CE knows her stuff and runs a tight ship.  She always welcomes me to the classroom and makes me feel like I belong.  Her students are wonderful and I look forward to seeing them each time I visit.  I have learned all of their names and had a chance to work one on one with each of them.  I receive hugs from students when I leave, they are truly a cute and loving bunch.  I even sent my CE pictures of our trip to DC last week to share with hers students and when I walked in yesterday they could not wait to tell me that they saw pictures of me "at the place where George Washington lives."

This has been the best clinical experience that I have had in my two years of clinical placements.  I have learned so much and I feel that along with my classes here on campus I have grown because of the placement.  It will be hard to leave these students because I care so much about them.  

I found an article on the NEA website called "A Quality Teacher is a Caring Teacher."  The article quotes Leo Buscaglia, "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around."  I think this just became my favorite quote.  Some of the children that we will serve will have hard little lives.  They may have parents who are separated or divorced, they may have lost a parent or a sibling,  they may be sick...the point is we don't know what goes on at home in many of our student's lives.  For some students school may be the only place that they feel safe and our love and care may be the only time they ever experience those feelings.  It is important that we remember this and are mindful to show that we care.  School should be a positive environment and as teachers it is our job to make it that way.

The article suggests 5 ways to show that you care:

1. Listen to your students and help them express who they are and how they want to be treated.

2. Help students show others what they want them to know about themselves.

3. Teach students to show that they about another person who serves the community or the country.

4. Work with parents to show interest and concern for their children.

5. Improve your practice by learning something new, including getting feedback from students.

Most teachers care about teaching their students but the best teachers care about the relationships that they form with their students while teaching them at the same time.

I found that this relates to working with families and significant adults in students lives (2e) and reflecting on practice (5) to make sure that their methods of demonstrating care and concern are working and creating a positive classroom environment.

http://www.nea.org/tools/15751.htm 

4.9.16

This past week, as many of you know, some of us took a trip to Washington, DC.  Though it was a memorable trip filled with growing closer with classmates, creating inside jokes, and #NeverAgain eating at Taco Bell, it was an educational trip that engaged us and taught us so much.

"The capitol of the United States, Washington DC is where history comes alive."  This is so true!  I had never been to DC before.  I mean I knew that it is our nations capitol and that it is historical, but there's just something about being in these places and seeing the history first hand that pulls you in and makes you want to learn everything you can.

Walking through the capitol building, seeing the White House, standing at the feet of Abraham Lincoln, visiting the Holocaust Museum, and seeing the Washington monument are experiences like none other.  There is so much History or Social Studies to be learned from visiting DC, but there are other content areas woven throughout the threads of the DC tapestry.

Science can be found in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, and the Udvar Hazy Center.  Art can be found in the Smithsonian American Art Museum as well as in the Capitol Building and the Library of Congress.  Literacy can be intertwined through reading in the museums, listening to our guides, and sharing learned information.  Math is a bit more challenging to incorporate but could probably be included with the Air and Space/Udvar Hazy Museums as well as with calculating how old buildings are and how many items the Library of Congress holds.  Health and Physical Exercise can also be factored in as we walked about 60,000 steps in just four days.

We were able to see so much in just four long days.  In addition to exploring the history of the city we were able to see many field trip do's and don'ts as well.  It seemed like the city was filled with middle school groups.  Some were well behaved and others were not.  We learned that bad behavior needs to be handled otherwise it affects the experience of people not on the trip.  We also learned that keeping the students busy (i.e walking everywhere) often keeps them out of trouble.

This was a wonderful experience that taught me so much.  I learned that in order to be a teacher leader on a trip like this, you need to know the area and have been before in order to plan the best trip for students (1a).  Trips like this cost a lot of money and teachers must work with families to fundraise and make the trip possible for all students (2e).  With this trip as well as any trip, teachers must make sure there are connections to the content as well as find ways in which other content areas are connected (3b and 3c).  On a trip this big teachers must make sure they are communicating clearly and effectively so that all students know where they need to be, what the rules are, and where to meet the group if they are allowed to roam on their own (4g).

http://www.classtrips.com/region-landing/1856/school-field-trips-in-washington-dc-metro

I'm also going to include some photos in case you want to see our trip.