Sydney Schelkopf

Foundations of Education and Student Development

25 October 2019

1st School Visit Reflection

My first visit as a prospective teacher was to Walnut Middle School. I was shadowing in

8th grade math and science classrooms. The first thing I noticed was how different the

environment was from a school like the one I grew up in was. The classrooms in a bigger school

feel much more cluttered by classroom materials. This could also be something I noticed

looking at the room as teacher and not as a student. The students were all very kind to each other

in both rooms I were in, they were all very good about helping each other and seemed focused on

the task at hand. In both rooms, there was a good balance of having fun and getting work done.

The math class was a tad larger than the science, each having 26 and 17, respectively. The boy/

girl ratio was even or close to even in both rooms. It is fair to say that about a third if even of

each class was white. Both classrooms had very encouraging posters on the wall, some were

subject specific and others weren’t. Something that stuck out to me was that the projectors the

teachers were given were set on desks, one classroom even had the desk off to the side and was

projecting the images at an angle. I don’t know why but that just stuck with me after I left. One

thing I thought was very cool was the relationship that the science teacher, Mrs. Wissing, had

with her students. You could tell that they respected her as a teacher but also knew they were

very close to her. The conversations were quite a bit more laid back and fun in her classroom but

she was able to quiet them down and get her attention when necessary.
 Overall, I am glad I got to see the middle school scene from a teaching perspective.

Those kids are at an age where teachers can really start to make an impact on the futures. If I

could build a bond like Mrs. Wissing had with her kids, I think the job would be very rewarding.