Student Practice Reflection - Day 2 (Classroom Routines)

     On January 27th I was finally able to come back for day 2 of my student practice. Being familiar with the environment now, I was able to feel much more relaxed and focus on observations. However, it was a day filled with realizations and hardships, but I am grateful to have been able to experience it and start working on bettering myself.

    Today I realized that I still lack a lot of confidence as a teacher. One of my tasks was to check the students' written assignments, a story, and I did not feel good doing it. I was so scared that I would make a mistake correcting their works, that I would miss something, or correct something that wasn't an error. It depended on the students' level, but when the learner had a high level of English for a 4th grader, I felt very vulnerable and awkward trying to correct them. I realized that I need to gain more confidence. Maybe I am being harsh on myself and didn't actually do a bad job, but because I didn't feel confident inside, that's what made me question myself. The best way to work on this issue would probably be practice assessing or revise grammar, punctuation, and spelling even more. Hopefully with time and experience I will be able to face this issue better, but it made me realize how far I still have to go. 

Classroom Routines

    Another thing I really enjoyed observing was organization of classroom routines. During the English class I noticed a couple acronyms that were explained on the posters on the classroom walls. The teacher was using them freely and it was clear the students knew them by heart as well. One acronym was 'DUMTUMS', which related to how the students should organize their notes. It meant: date, underline, miss a lane, topic, underline, miss a line, start. Personally, I am really into organization and clarity, so I thought this was really neat idea. There were plenty of other acronyms related to different aspects of the lesson, for example, 'WALT' meaning 'we are learning to' for class goals. Another routine I noticed was that the math class started with a segment called 'brain gym,' where students were given a couple equations, related to past lessons, to warm them up. It was especially important since they had just come back from playing outside, so this was a great way to put them back in 'school mode.' These routines and ways to organize class were very inspirational to me. Repetition and the sense of comfort they provide help students know what to expect and lessen their anxiety related to the unknown. As far as the lessons themselves go however, they usually do not have a set structure. The only one is math - starts with the 'brain gym', then a new concept in introduced, followed by practice activities. All other classes have a lot of flexibility as far as their structure goes. Now I wanted to discuss the more technical side of classroom management. The students usually stay in their own classroom and it's the teacher, who comes to them, but when they need to go to a different room, they always line-up by the door according to the alphabet. It allows for a lot of control from the teacher and it's easy to count the kids that way and see who is missing. As expected, students signal anything to the teacher by raising their hand. When it comes to leaving the classroom during class, students are allowed to do it once they ask, but only one at a time. If they arrive late, they are expected to go to their seat quietly, so that they do not disrupt the lesson, the teachers, and the other students. Every lesson ends with wrapping up the work, if it is unfinished it needs to be done at home, and students clean up after themselves and prepare for the next class. When students finish work early, they are either given more similar work or they can finish work from other classes, which allows them to stay busy and keep working. Finally, I also wanted to mention homework. This might be the most fascinating part, because this school is a 'no-homework' school. I believe it works, because the kids are in school for many hours a day - probably more than in other schools. There's a lot of lesson and a lot of repetition or revision within them, which allows the students to not bring any work home. The only exceptions are studying for tests and if a student has not finished the necessary work at school. I love this method, because it allows to separate school and home life. It is possible to achieve thanks to the long school hours, which could be hard sometimes, but allow students to fully rest or spend time with family once they get home.

    This second day was a little hard for me, I felt quite vulnerable realizing my shortcomings, but it's all part of the process. I am only starting my student practice and still have time to grow as a teacher. I definitely need to work on my confidence, but at least I was able to realize it and now have a goal to reach.