Practicum Observation #1
I have finally started on my journey to becoming a teacher! These first two weeks have been a great start to seeing how classrooms at a venturing school run, especially in the midst of a pandemic. I got placed in a grade one/two classroom with an amazing teacher (we will refer to her as Mrs. W) who I have actually had the privilege of subbing as an education assistant in her class before. It was interesting to see how much the classroom had changed since I had been there last due to covid-19, as well as making that mental switch of being an EA in a class to be a teacher candidate instead. From being an EA, I went in there with the goal to support the student I was assigned to work with but entering as a TC was a switch. I was no longer there to only work with one student, but to observe all of them, as well as the teacher.
The focus for week one was to observe what is happening in the space of learning, and how the overall environment and routines supported the learning. Mrs. W made me feel very welcomed right from the start. I joined her outside for morning supervision where she gave me information on the students in her class and how her morning would run. This school has a morning breakfast program so that any student who has not eaten yet can receive breakfast before their day starts. Before covid happened, the breakfast program was running from a separate space and students where then able to go into the school and receive it before class but because of safety reasons students not wait for school to start and a staff member brings it to them in the morning. Mrs. W made the comment that she does not believe her students need breakfast in the morning, that they all eat at home but that it is something that the students look forward to in the morning even though it eats up 30 minutes of class time.
Mrs. W told me that at that point so far, she normally only had 12 students a day between transition kids, kids sick etc. and yet that day her entire class showed it. They were absolutely crazy and that first week was significantly different from the second week I spent there. That day was spent, washing hands, talking about behaviour and setting the standards for how the whole class is ran for the students who had not been there in days or weeks. Her class is laid out with 5 circular tables, 4 per table and certain students are seated with students that will not distract them. She explained how one of the boys in the grade 2 class loved to flirt with the grade 1 girls and it was something that she was trying to learn to balance and set boundaries for, so that all the students would learn from it. Mrs. W uses The Mind Up Curriculum (K-12) and learning the brain. From there they learned 3 parts of the brain that then control emotions and memories that then lead into the zones of emotions and Mrs. W explained how if they learn their emotions, they will then learn how to regulate them. While she was teaching these concepts, she did not keep them in their seat, she brought them to their “carpet” area (which no longer contains a carpet) and got them to all participate in saying the parts of the brain and then quick say how they were feeling. These kids loved to talk, and had no problem sharing exactly how they were feeling.
Week two there, the decision was made that we would go back to the same classroom we were in the week before, and it was great to then see the difference on how the kids behaved and how Mrs. W taught. The focus for week two student responsibilities, motivation, and learning behaviours within the class. Mrs. W informed me that this class was very motivated by recess/lunch and music/library/computers. Anything that got these students out of the class and let them leave their spots was their main goal. She used going outside for recess as a goal for them to get their morning activities done. Morning calendar was at the “carpet” and if the students did not want to follow the expectations of participating and behaving then they could show her how to them that they could do it but at recess while the rest of the class went outside. It was interesting to see how this kept these students’ behaviours more regulated. They wanted to complete their tasks so that they could get the most play time outside. Mrs. W does a lot of group work where they all sit together and listen then discuss. Math, language arts, reading etc, anything where they could be together, she did that. It was interesting to see that, but when she said that these students thrive off of community and peer support then her actions made more sense. The students in this grade all want any attention they can get, and by keeping them in groups it was a way to control the way they behaved towards each other by having to work together and support each other’s learning.
Mrs. W was an amazing teacher to get to spend my first two weeks of practicum with. Her years of teaching and having worked at several venturing schools gave her the patience and experience that I hope to obtain though my own teaching journey. She was incredibly willing to share all her resource and time to give me access to anything I needed or wanted and even said that if I ever need anything late on, she would be more than happy if I contacted her. It was great to have a teacher so willing to share and teach me as a future teacher.
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