A Week of Learning!

Well this has been a very interesting week in my classroom for sure! It was filled with a lot of learning lessons and has been rather eventful.

This week was the second week that we were in our classrooms full time, to give us an opportunity to learn more about daily life in a classroom and for those who haven't been able to see a full day at the schools, it allows for that time as well. I spent Monday through Friday in the classroom full day which was exciting! I got to see the routine of each day and see how the children adjust to as weather and mood changes in the classroom. So on the the learning opportunities...

First of all, my CT had left me in charge of the classroom to take care of some business in the office while the students were doing their morning entry work. I had looked up to check on students and it seemed like as soon as I looked down to continue correcting papers, I had 3 students hurry up to me saying, "Miss D! Miss D! She just puked all over herself! And a book!" I looked up an one of my students had vomited all over herself, her desk, a book, the floor near my desk, and the trash can near the door. I quickly went over to her and made sure that she was okay and helped her get some paper towels to clean herself off. Then I was faced with a dilemna: my CT was out of the room, the students realized something was going on, and I had no clue what I should do! Luckily the teacher next door to mine didn't have any students at the time, so I ran next door and said, "What do you do if a student vomits in class!?" Thankfully, he knew exactly what to do and helped me greatly by cleaning up most of the mess so that we could do the community meeting to distract the students. My CT walked in right as we were coming back in to clean the mess and so she calmly called the janitor and the problem was taken care of. Lesson learned: I know I need to stay calm even in emergency situations (though this wasn't a major emergency at all) because the students are looking to me for guidance and direction on how to react in a situation. If I freak out, so will they. If I stay calm, they will follow suit.

The second major learning lesson happened the following day when we started the district writing assessment for the students. We had just finished narrative writing and so we thought that the students would be fairly comfortable writing in a narrative format on the assessment. Well, not 10 minutes into the assessment session and we have a student laying down on his desk bawling. After he spent his whole time not being productive because he was either frustrated or crying, or some combination of the above, it was time to do points. He was offered a six out of ten because he didn't even try for most of the working time. Well that set him off once again. Even though it was pizza day (a favorite for my students) there was no getting him to line up with the rest of the students, he was sitting at his desk, crying, with his head and arms tucked into his shirt. My CT saw what was going on, and left, knowing that I would have to learn how to deal with this situation. I excused the students to lunch and then dealt with the boy. I had to work for about 15 minutes to calm him down, assure him that he was doing a great job and that he could be successful with his writing even though spelling is a big issue for him. Then we came to the issue where he felt like he was being singled out by constantly being offered a six when points came around. We had to discuss why he was being offered a six, developed a plan to make his day that day and how he could use that plan to extend his good choices for the following days. Finally, when he was calm and collected we went and got him some lunch and he headed off to eat with a big smile! It was one of the first experiences where I felt like I had really made a difference and that I really connected with a student in my classroom. Learning lesson: My CT put it best when she said, "When you have a behavior issue in the classroom, you need to make sure their three basic needs are being met: Sleep, Food, and Love."

This past week had taught me a lot of lessons about being a teacher that I probably couldn't have learned other than by experiencing them myself, firsthand. I am glad that these situations arose when I am a student teacher rather than when I am teaching on my own and have to be so flustered with no one to turn to for extra help during that moment or to debrief with about what happened after the problem is solved. Overall, though it was exhausting to have two full weeks in the classroom (and on that side note, I realized that I am going to be constantly exhausted once I'm a full time classroom teacher) I believe that it was very successful and it a very positive experience filled in valuable learning lessons.