Week Two

Another week has gone by. The days here go by so fast!

Last week seemed a blur although it was really tough. I received my first A&P test back and it was awful. I still feel haunted from 3 years ago taking this course, and am reminded daily of why I am an elementary education major and not a nursing major. Although I love the idea of being a nurse still, God keeps pushing me to be a teacher. So here I am! Week numero dos con los ninos. I mean week number two with the kids. :)

I remembered almost all 20 of my homeroom's names.
They are still as cute as ever, especially the little boys. It is reallllly bad how biased I am towards boys. I think from having 3 brothers myself and no sisters! (Thanks Mom!) For my final project in my Reading class at Messiah (yes, we have to think that far in advance already), we have to do a QRI: Qualitative Reading Inventory, by conducting 6 or so interviews and finding out about a particular child's reading level. I wanted to do a boy, which worked out 'cause Sam, my team teaching partner, wanted to do a girl. I had it narrowed down to two boys. One I knew could write a lot since for last weeks activity we had all the kids write in their 'passports' about where they want to go and draw a picture of themselves. This particular little boy, M, drew a picture of himself with his mom. On his shirt it said "Man of the house," making me think two things: 1. how when my brother Ian goes away, he tells my nephew Evan that he's the Man of the House, reminding him of the duties and responsibilities of the Man of the House (like protecting mom and making sure everything is safe), and 2. this boy doesn't have a father in his life if he's being called the Man of the House. My other option for a boy to interview was C, this little hispanic cutie with the most gorgeous eyes that kill me! He is so precious, I could squeeze him. He loooves football (the Eagles being his favorite team, with the Cowboys as a close 2nd, and the Steelers being 'the worst team ever').

On Tuesday the first period was Wings, which Miss Spunk combined with another 4th grade teacher so the class was bigger. It was unbelievable how uncooperative these kids were. They were split into teams, which most of them hated and commented on how they disliked someone in their group, even if they didn't know them. I tried to help one team think up a name and literally the girls just stared at me and shrugged their shoulders when I asked what kind of things they liked, hobbies, etc. These poor kids, and poor teachers where it feels hopeless and nothing can get through to these kids and help them learn. It was a struggle, and disappointing, especially because it took 40 minutes (out of the 80 total) to group them into teams, then pick team names, before the lesson could actually begin. Then Sam and I saw our homeroom kids and dropped them off at their special for the day, which was Music. One of my students can play the guitar and I asked him if he'd play me a song, and he just smiled.

Today was much more different. The kids came in and ate their breakfast quickly, then shipped off to different classrooms to do a state-wide (I think?) reading and math test on the computer. I helped out the teacher across the hall, who's been teaching there her whole career life! She knows her stuff, and she is tough with the students. They've done this kind of test before, but never computer-based and so it was frustrating to have not all the computers work at the same time. Some it took 30 minutes to get started. I got to know some more students, and then I took C out in the hallway to introduce myself better to him. I gave him a list of things that I like, and he was to say if he liked those things too, kind of liked them, felt neutral, didn't like them, or hated them. Examples like, "I like the Phillies," which he 'strongly agreed to.' Or things like, "I like playing out in the snow," which he hated. It was an interesting morning, glad it was different.

Tomorrow, Sam and I are going back in the afternoon to read Punctuation Takes a Vacation as our first read aloud. Miss Spunk gave us this book, as usually we'd choose, but at this school there is no room for read alouds or too much flexibility to have what Messiah requires us do this semester. It'll be fun!

First week

Hi there!

I've decided to blog my experiences at Steelton-Highspire, the urban elementary school near Harrisburg where I will be observing and teaching 4th grade! My teacher is Miss Spunk, where this is her 4th year teaching at Steelton. She has done something different every year. She's so spunky and very outspoken; I love her honesty. I'll be there from 7:30-11:30am on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so I just finished my first week!

I am team teaching with Samantha, another friend from my education classes. I've known her since freshmen year since she actually used to be a nursing major and we both switched to education around the same time! We were supposed to get our placements last Thursday (the 16th), but when we had the meeting, we were told that not all the placements were set in stone yet. There have been problems in Harrisburg... within the last 2 years this is the 5th superintendent, and lots of switching between teachers. Mrs. F, who is my advisor, is the one who places us here at Messiah; she asked us to write down the names of two people who we could work with, since there were going to be some team teaching. I didn't know that this would be for an urban school, as I requested to be in an urban school. Sam was paired with me, and two other girls from our classes are at Steelton also. We'll be carpooling together this semester.

We arrived a little before 8:00 on Tuesday. We had a meeting with the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, and the principal. All the other Messiah observers/teachers were to be at this meeting; we were showed a powerpoint and they made the school look really good. After the meeting, Sam and I went to look for our classroom. The building hallways are in a square so it's easy to get lost. We found our class and met with Miss Grimes for a little bit. The children get a free breakfast (and most get a free lunch) and then at 8:40 Wings started. Wings is a new program in reading which lasts 1 hour 20 minutes (until 10:00). Miss Spunk does not like it, and from what I've seen it isn't very beneficial. Because I'm in the primary grades (K-3), this school does a developmental program. It used to be just the 6th graders (before they went onto the other school building for grades 7-12), where a different teacher teaches the same thing to 100 or so different kids. This is what I had in middle school at Phil-Mont, but now at Steelton they've added 5th and 4th graders to it, so they do not get recess. It puts the 4th-6th graders into groups based on what level they are at in a certain subject. I saw Reading which had 7 kids on Tuesday (but 2 were missing). Most were 5th graders, with one 6th grader and one 4th grader. They're at the lowest level of reading according to the PSSA's... most at a 2nd grade level. This program also includes a DVD which the students aren't too interested in, as well as a script that the teacher has to read off of -- the idea is that if someone walks down the hall, the teacher will be reading the same thing if you walk from room to room. The workbooks that go with this program are limited and the students cannot even write in them; if they want to save it, they can copy it onto another piece of paper.

After Wings, those 7 students went back to their homerooms and my homeroom came in. We had 19 students that day (2 were missing), and they lined up to go to the special of the day: Computer. :) Miss Spunk, Sam and I dropped off the kids and then talked about expectations and what Sam and I will have to do this semester. There is a Messiah student teacher, Amber, who is also placed in this classroom, as well as a Penn State student. Some days there will be all 4 of us in at the same time! Amber doesn't start full time until October, but Sam and I weren't advised to start teaching lessons until then so I'm not sure we'll get our reading and math lessons in. There aren't enough weeks left to do this!

At 10:40 we picked up the kids and Sam and I got to know them a little bit more. They have to call us Miss ____, in my case it can't be shortened to Miss O! Stinks for them... they sound so funny pronouncing my last name. They had reading then until 11:30 and we were going to do an activity but they had to take a quiz instead and we didn't have enough time. One girl threw down her pencil in dispair and said, "Curse you time!"

Yesterday, Thursday, was my 2nd day. I remembered most of the kids' names, which was great. Most of the are names I have never heard of but now that I've talked to them, it's getting easier to memorize. Sam and I arrived at 7:30 and helped Miss Spunk grade papers to help her out. Then we saw the same group for Wings, with all 9 of them there. Sam and I got to help out with their reading and pronunciation/comprehension of words. They had some independent reading too so I helped some of them pick out a book to read. They had art for their special that day and some ladies from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (!!) were supposed to come for a meeting but they never showed! After we picked up the kids from art Sam and I did our activity that we brought. We made them each passports, with a place to write their name and draw a picture of themselves on the front. On the inside they were to write about a place they've always wanted to go to and why, who they would bring and what they would bring. It was a hit! We got some really cute pictures, and this way we could see how well they could write with punctuation and spelling. :) Some of them even said they'd bring Sam and me. It was really cute. They're starting to get the hang of how to pronounce my last name. One girl said, "I've got the 'legel' part but not the 'oelsch'..." :) She knew it.

I think I'll really enjoy this year. These children are endearing, as I've found myself favoring the boys over the girls. They are just so funny! However, these kids can really talk nasty to each other. Many have not been taught good work ethic so they're apathetic too. It'll be a challenging, but good semester.

*Note: Miss Spunk is a pseudonym since this is a public blog and I'm not really sure how privacy works in this case. :)