Kena Scott

Mrs. Barner

Aspiring Educators

Growth In The Classroom (Internship 1)

Being in a classroom for four hours, compared to being in one for thirty minutes has

taught me a lot. When I first walked into the classroom the first thing I noticed was their learning

environment. Everything was neat, and the room had pretty natural colors. There were stuffed

animals and toys in the back of the room. And the front of the room, where they faced, had more

educational visuals. Something else I noticed is how many of the books in the classroom were

diverse. I learned that it is important to strongly incorporate diversity into a classroom, especially

when the students are diverse themselves. It makes them feel good to read books and see pictures

with people that look like them. This taught me more on different ways I can incorporate

diversity in my own classroom, and how to decorate the classroom in a non distracting way.

Observing the classroom made me realize that it can be hard for teachers to manage their

classroom. Teachers have hard days too. It made me understand why teachers get upset when

kids fall asleep, or don't pay attention. Because sometimes teachers might want the day to hurry

and end too. So when a teacher comes to school in a bad mood, dealing with a class that doesn’t

respect your teaching can be very frustrating. My host teacher was very good at keeping the kids

in check, and she knows when to avoid showing sympathy towards them. From my point of

view, she had all her priorities straight, and when she seemed exhausted, I would always offer to

help. But sometimes she declines it, which shows me that when I am a teacher, I won’t have

someone to always assist me, I will need to do things on my own.

One of the many things that I realized with their learning needs, was that the children

tend to need confirmation and reassurance from my host teacher. This relates to Erik Erikson’s
Kena Scott

Mrs. Barner

Aspiring Educators

Psychosocial theory, Industry versus Inferiority. Many of the students will call out my name or

my host teacher's name so that we can come look at what they are working on. A characteristic

that I witnessed was some of the students covering their work and looking worried. It seemed

like they felt self conscious about their work. Sometimes my host teacher would walk around and

show the students work on the big screen. I like this method because it helps the kids feel better

about their work.

There are many ways that Miss Stanzyck would catch her class's attention. Since they are

kindergarten students, they have a harder time staying calm and focused. She uses a variety of

chants like, “Hopewell!” and they would respond with, “Hops!”. This basically meant that it is

time to stop what you are doing and look up at her. I also noticed that Mrs. Fall, the art teacher,

would use strategies to get kids to focus. For example, when I helped in her classroom, a student

from Miss Stanzyck’s classroom was making a marker sword, so she told him, “Oh, you’re not

in trouble, you just reminded me to tell everyone not to do this!”. Miss Stanzyck also passes out

little points when students are doing good, and she also picks out secret walkers when they are

being good in line. These are strategies that I would like to use in my own classroom.

When Miss Stanzyck lesson plans, she works with all of the other kindergarten teachers. I

have noticed that they use a lot of hands on projects for the kids. This helps them stay focused

since they love to interact with things. They also make sure that they have about ten extra copies

of each worksheet or project because they have been getting a lot of new students recently.

One example of assessment of learning would be how Miss Stanzyck gathers information

on how much the students understand what they are learning, and if they aren’t understanding the
Kena Scott

Mrs. Barner

Aspiring Educators

work, then she will give them a little extra help. Another form would be when she walks around

and shows their work on the board, it makes the kids feel better about their work because they

don’t only receive praise from Miss Stanzcyk, the other students also clap and give them praise.