What a ride!

By Yalina Soto
As I sit back and think back to my teaching practice, I had a lot of great memories as well
as experiences that helped experience the importance of a good education. I am very thankful
for my experiences and that I now have a much better understanding of the word teacher. A
lot of things have to be taken into account: the grade one is working with, the community around
the school, the infrastructure where the students and teachers work together, the personality and
abilities of each students and the vocation a person needs to have in order to teach.
During these three months, I worked in a first grade class at Santa Rosa, La Palmera. I
was very fortunate to have a mentor teacher that had a lot of experience and a good disposition to
help me.

She had a great way of communicating her thoughts and giving me ideas. My

coordinator and I got along really well and the other teachers were very welcoming. The
environment between the fellow teachers was very positive. I am happy to say that they always
made me feel welcome and appreciated.
Santa Rosa is a rural school that is in a very nice community. The town has families from
different social and economic backgrounds. There are a lot of family problems regarding
alcohol, drugs and single parents. These problems are reflected on the children that go to school,
but the teachers are devoted to help the student body and the families as well.
The infrastructure is a very bad shape and the teachers do their best to work around that.
As an example, the school does not have a place where they can have their student assemblies,
therefore, they have them in the hall. In relation to this matter, The Board of Education is
working really hard to have a new school by next year with the help of the Ministry of
Education.
I learned a lot during my teaching internship. One important lesson that I took away was
that all students learning differently and it is up to us as teachers to meet the needs to every
student in our classroom. I do not want to say that I was nave before I began my internship but I
guess I did not realize how in a class of 18 students there could be so many different learning
styles. Before I thought once I was done planning a lesson, that was it; but I quickly learned that
once the lesson was done being planned that was only the beginning of it. I might have to
modify it to meet the needs of some of my lower students and the different change of schedules

that the school has. A lot of the activities did not go according to plan. Sometimes the whole
activity went wrong: the students were not interested, the time was not plan correctly or it just
didnt work the way I had envisioned it on my head.
I also quickly learned that there has to be a true calling for teaching. I feel that without it
the work becomes really tedious and exhausting. This experience has helped me rethink my
purpose and my vocation. I do not believe that I am ready to work as a full time teacher at my
age and with the family responsibilities that I have. I do have a new respect for those people that
are able to handle a family life and a job as demanding as this one.
I will be forever thankful for this experience. It was my first experience teaching and
running a classroom. I learned a lot and had many opportunities to reflect back on my teaching.
A teacher has to keep learning new things every day. The learning experience is in constant
movement. This practice has also allowed me to experience both the rewards and difficulties of
being a teacher and learning how to address value each student according to their abilities.