Family Problems

I have been working on my final presentation on parent teacher communications and it has really opened up my eyes on how important the family life can be to the learning experience. I have a student in my class that is going through some terrible personal family issues and although the child is only two, she understands that something is not right. Although as a teacher, I am communicating with the family about the situation but it seems to be taking a toll on the student. I lay her down for nap and she will tell me about how she misses her mother and it is so hard for me as a teacher to not get completely emotionally involved in the situation. In all of my research for this project as well as my personal experiences I have just really come to terms with the idea of how important the family is and how important that communication can be between the teacher and the family of the student. My mother has always told me that it takes a village to raise a child and I am such a true believer of this as I think that the teacher takes a large role in being a part of the village that does this. 

Developmental Changes

In my observations, I am just beginning to realize the developmental changes in the students. I am so amazed at how far they have come since the beginning of the year. Students who had never even heard of colors before can name them all. Children who did not know how to count can now count to ten and sometimes beyond. I am so amazed at how much the children have learned in the classroom and I know the reason that it has begun to stick is because of the repetition. Constantly all year we have been going over with the children their numbers, colors, animals, etc. I had a mom come in this week and tell me that I had done an excellent job on colors with her daughter. I talked to her about how I thought that she had been working on them at home with her and surprisingly the mother said that they had not. It was such a wonderful feeling to know that her learning of colors was a result of me going over them and over them with her. 

First Group Lesson

After I taught my first group lesson I quickly realized how important it really is to set the behavioral expectations up front to the students. In this particular situation I was teaching 6 5-6 year old boys and I had a hard time commanding their attention. They were talking about spelling and other ideas and I had to take what they were talking about and tie it all into the lesson so that I could get their attention and direction where I needed it to be. I realzed how much teachers talk about behavioral expectations and most teachers require that you put the behavioral expectations explicitly in the lesson plan so the children will know what kind of behavior is expected from them, and now I know why. Overall, I think that the lesson went great, but next time I am going to think of some plans for setting up the behavioral expectations up front so that they will know how I expect them to behave. Until you teach, you have no idea how important this can be in a lesson!

Who Knows Best?

One thing that I noticed quickly in my beginning days as a teacher is that parent communication is crucial when you are a teacher. Parents need to be informed and stay informed of the progress of their students because they are on your side to help you teach their children. Although this can be positive in that the parents and the teachers work together to accomplish a goal or teach the children different ideas, I have found that sometimes it can be difficult as well. For example, the children in my classroom are 2 and 3 years old and therefore they are still taking naps at school. The majority of my class is potty trained at this point but almost everyone is still wearing pull-ups during nap time to prevent accidents. A few weeks ago we had parent conferences with the parents to inform them of progress in the class on all accounts including potty training. One particular students mother voiced that she would like for her daughter to not wear pull-ups at nap time anymore. Well, I keep a record of who is wet and who is dry after naps and this particular child was wet after nap 3 times just that week. It was a difficult situation that I realized is going to come up very often as a teacher in that the question who knows what is better for the student? It was so hard for me to accept this mothers decision because she is the one who is in control of the situation, but I spend a lot of time with her daughter (7 hours) each day which is probably more that she spends with her own daughter. I know that I must follow the requests of the mother but it was an extremely difficult situation for me as I felt like I knew better than the mother on this particular subject.

Learning Colors

I have been in the same classroom all semester with the two and three year olds at Ashley Hall. Since the beginning of the semester I have been going over and over their colors with them during center time. No matter which center at which we are playing, or what activity we may be doing I have worked as hard as I can to incorporate colors so that the children will be able to master them by the end of the year. Several of my students have learned the colors right away (probably with some help at home) but there are others who have struggled and are still struggling. One student in particular had no concept of colors whatsoever when she walked into my classroom and I have been working with her ever since. I would work every day with her and just as I would think she was getting the concept, she would name a color that we were not even working with, or just begin guessing. Finally, last week I began to go over all of the primary colors with her using a fall leaf sort and finally she got it! It was such an amazing feeling to know that I was able to help her to grasp a concept and understand something, even if it was something as simple as her colors. Now, she goes all around the room pointing out all of the colors that she knows and it is such a wonderful feeling to know that I was a part of this learning experience and confidence that she has gained!