My Teaching Adventure!

By going to these Providence Schools every week really has made a huge difference in my teaching experience. Every job I've had since I was 15 had to do with children, but never actually going into a classroom. My mother is a Pre-School teacher and I've gone to work with her and seen her teach her children but by actually working with them hands on has really gotten me ready for my own classroom one day. Every week when i go into the elementary school i sit in the back of the classroom and observe the daily lessons and activities my teacher does with the children. I watch how my teacher handles the children's needs and problems and how she responds to their questions and answers. After observing for a little while the children always get off of the alphabet rug and sit at their desks ready to draw and practice their letters. They learn a new letter every week and have to draw a picture of the letter and practice writing the letter in their journals. I walk around and help the students with their letters and give them a stamp or a star on their paper if they've done a good job listening and following directions. By sitting in the classroom every week i already have learned all of the children's names and what they need help with and what they are capable of. When becoming a teacher, you first need to learn all about each child's history and their learning skills before starting to teach them. You cant have a classroom filled with children not knowing their learning capability. A teachers role is to never have the children be afraid of you, you always want them to tell you whatever their feeling and talk with you almost like a counselor. Its better to be close with your teacher so they can help you instead of having problems with your teacher because that wont get you anywhere. Looking back, i can still remember my favorite teachers and the impact that each teacher has had on my life. I can still remember the teacher i was afraid of and were mean to me. As a teacher you never want to have that image of yourself on children. By going every week to these Providence schools also has helped me work and teach ESL children. When i become a teacher i could have many ESL children in my classroom and from attending this Elementary school i have a lot more experience working with them than before i started my service learning. By going to these schools every week i also have gained patience with the children. For example, some of the children wont sit still when i am tutoring them one on one. They are antsy and sometimes I feel like they don't want to listen, so by going every week i have learned to be more patient with the children and by asking them nicely to pay attention instead of getting fed up and angry will really get the children to listen to me and respect me as a teacher. By doing service learning hours it has really gotten me ready to be in my own classroom someday. Just by going in the classroom and watching all the different activities and ways to teach the children has made me feel more comfortable and ready to have my own classroom someday!

Snow White Castle

When walking into the classrooms of Snow White Castle Elementary School, you will see many different types of race and languages within the students. In my Kindergarten classroom all of the children are Hispanic besides about 1 or 2. They all can speak fluent Spanish and broken up English. When I tutor some of the children outside of the classroom they all have very strong accents. When i ask them a question, most of them answer in broken up English and then ask me if their correct. As Kindergarten students they all know that English is their second language and how i speak in English sounds different than how they pronounce their words. I love sitting in the classroom and listening to them speak. Each one of the Kindergarten children all really want to learn. They all get excited when us, tutors takes them out of the classroom because they love the one on one attention. I don't live with the children at home, so i don't know how much attention they get from their parents but by going once a week really makes a difference in the students life's. When i walk into the first grade classrooms most of the children are black and Hispanic and English is their second language. When i tutor the first graders i ask them to read a book to me. I have 1 Hispanic boy, 1 Hispanic girl and 1 white girl. When we read books the Hispanic little boy and girl pronounce their words differently than the little white girl and she always tries to correct them. I thought that was very interesting, having ESL children mixed with a child who just needs help reading because she knows that they have accents and always tries to correct their English. The ESL children get annoyed sometimes so I have to explain to her that we are working on reading and not how they talk. Sometimes its a struggle for me because having them mixed is harder than just having all children that need help reading but every time i go to Snow White Castle they are improving and the little girl doesn't correct them as much anymore. When looking at Info Works their are many different pie charts about Snow White Castle Elementary School. The first pie chart is about reduced and free lunches. There is 91% of children that get free or reduced lunch at school and 9 aren't eligible. That shows that their families aren't making enough money to give their children money to buy lunch and they qualify for free lunches at school. Also on the next pie chart there is race and ethnic backgrounds at the school. The chart reads that 62% are Hispanic and 12% are African American, Asians are 17% and whites are 8%. By looking at these results it doesn't surprise me at all. Almost every child in both of my classrooms I observe are all Hispanic or African Americans. Just by the first day I walked in the school and saw many Spanish posters, I knew right away the Hispanic percentage would be higher than whites. I was then surprised when i saw on the last pie chart, students receiving ESL/ Bilingual education services and the percentage of children that don't receive ESL at all are 74%. The students that receive ESL is 26%. That surprised me a lot because most of my children are ESL. I thought the percentages would be opposite but by looking at that chart maybe the children haven't been put into ESL classrooms yet. The students at Snow White Castle Elementary School bring cultural capital into the classroom. Most of the students in my classrooms receive free or reduced lunch. The children's families can not afford money to give to their children to buy lunch everyday. The children tell me what their parents do for a living. They tell me that some of their parents are stay at home moms or are teachers or some just don't even know. But even if there parents make little to no money they are still highly educated. Even if their families don't have much money the children in my classroom are still getting educated they are receiving social skills and intellectual knowledge. Just by being in school you learn all of those skills that would help you in the real world someday. My theorist i related this prompt to was Kahnn and Westheimer. By reading In the Service Of What? reminded me about our service learning we are doing in the providence schools. By going to Snow White Castle i am making a huge difference on the children's lives even if they don't realize it right now. Just by sitting with them one on one and helping them read i am making a difference on their lives that they never would have had. Kahnn and Westheimer talk about all the different service learning projects they did and this really reminds me of our experiences. By going to these school every week has really made a difference in my life as well. It will help me out one day when i am faced with all of these challenges in my own classroom and by doing this service learning we will be ready to face all of these challenges!