Reflection #1 August 18-22, 2014
The first week of practice teaching was stressing, weird and fun. On my first day I was very excited and I literally got to my practice teaching center like at 9:40 am. I felt like my first day of school, you know those first days that you have everything prepared to details even the clothes you will wear. When I got to the school I felt nervous, but sure of what I was going to do. I didn’t know my practice teacher so I was wondering how she should look or be when I met her. The school structure is very modern. To my surprise it wasn’t what I expected, it was actually better. I felt lucky to bin a school with many facilities and great environment. I knew some of the personnel and students because of previous experiences working with them in summer. When I got to the first classroom where I would meet my practice teacher I hated the smell of the classroom. It was closed, tight and hot because there were way to many students. There was no space. But, I ignored it and kept on a happy face thinking that I was lucky to have that modern school. When I met my cooperating teacher we start talking and walking towards some stairs and then she explained we have no classroom. She was carrying a bunch of material. I thought it was desconsiderate to have her go up the stairs every day because the elevator is not working. I got a little bit upset because of the situation. After meetin the second group I still felt happy and prepared for this experience. Some of the students understood the language and many funny things happened because of the occurrence of the students. My launch break was total and undiscutible a weird lunch period. Every teacher kept staring at me and saying all kinds of comments like “do you know what you are getting yourself into little girl?” “Oh my God, you look so young! etc. and I dint feel respected by some because of my appearance and apparently
ignorance in the field and in life. I felt attacked by stery eyes, but I din’t let it affect me. When I met my group I got a bit scared and the entire week I felt no connection whatsever with this group (the one I’m supposed to teach) Only a few understood the language and mostly all of them didn’t know how to follow instructions. They were crazy! Literally crazy! There was one student who was playing curiosly with his belly button and a feather. So, imagine my reaction to this. It was hilarious and there was this creepy student that since he met me he kept saying the entire week “Hey! I saw you at the lunchroom, but in an obsessive weird way! I just wanted him to stop because it got anyoing. Since the beginning I stated teaching. I observed very little but all I could say is that these students are not prepared to be in a first grade. They don’t even write. They just want to play and sing, but other skills are not being embraced by them. I got frustruated because I was wondering how I was going to get insede their heads and implement knowledge. While observing the cooperating teacher I noticed her lack of patience and sometimes motivation because all the factors mentioned before. As an educator as well I don’t blame her. The majority of the parents do not help and students need reteaching all the time because it creates consistency. Not being able to receive any type of response can be frustruating, but I know if I work hard I will impact at least one of them and one is better than none. This experience has taught me that not only at this level, but in every level I should be prepared to encounter different things even if they are odd as playing with the your belly button and a feather. I started saying to myself that I like small people, but I prefer older ones. Let’s see how this journey will continue. I will follow the compass.
Reflection #2 August 25-29, 2014 This past week I’ve been attending earlier than usual in order to use all the time I can to get to know the school and the people I it. I’ve been meeting volunteer parents and having informal interviews with them. It’s a little bit tiresome to see so many parents all the time in school. Many of them axfixiate the tudents and are gossiping all the time. There have been many of them that come to me, of course not in a very subtle way looking for a benefit in the English class for their kids. It is frustruating that they sometimes inhibit the experience and idependence of the studens. Other parents help a lot by creating material and maintaining order and discipline in school. I still feel excitement coming to school. I have many ideas and dispositionto offer knowledge to others. Some teachers that work in that school have work with me before in a scicence proposal which right now is also part of the school. The Eco-STEAM program works with the environment subject, but it also integrates science, technology, engenearing arts, and mathematics. This semester the students will learn how to program a robot that they will be creating eventually. They will learn about robotics, astronomy, desing and 3d printing, so is a great proyect and I will be working with it as well. Working with a 3D printer is very rare in our schools here in Puerto Rico, so I am most definetly exited of being a teacher in this school. For the past week I offered a Prezi Workshop to a group of eight graders and they were engaged and motivated with his new plataform. They were a bit noisy and many did not know how to follow directions, but eventually they got the hang of it. We had problems with the internet, because the most doltish thing about it is that we as a 21st century school have technology in abundance and we are allowed to use the internet, but almost everything and I mean EVERYTHING is blocked! What is that all about? It really dosent make any sense. Still, the workshop was successful. I vise
the store insede the school wich is a Cooperative and their objective are quiet remarkable. Literally students are creating awareness about money saving and other aspects that eventually will help theml. I most definetly need that. I started correcting notebooks and work never seems to end. It’s kind of scary to see how many students still need to develop their writing because many of them have improve very little this skill and one of the factors is that they do not practice at home or teachers seem to be giving them too many handouts and little writing. I don’t intend to critizize them, because this is a developmental skill so, it does not imply that they do not have the capacity, but they sure need an aboundance of practice. There is a situation with a student. He has many behavioral issues and seems a bit disfuctional. We are working as best as we can with him. The journey seems to be getting hard , but not impossible.
Reflection #3 September 1-5, 2014
I created my first official test as a practice teacher and I was criticized because it was too easy. I got a little bit upset because even though I wanted to create a more challenging test I couldn’t because the students do not domain the language and parents do not reinforce the skills or concepts at home. Whatever I achieve building in the students they destroy but not providing consistency. Students don’t know how to follow instructions nor rules of what a test is about/. I had to repeat the instructions more than ten times and provide a example for each part. It was frustruating to see how they coniusly fail with a simple topic that they already know. I have assess what they know with other projects based on the same topic and they prove they know part of the material, but when it comes to theory they haven’t conceptualize it yet. I was really exited because it is my intention to win the students attention in order for them to learn, so I was all over school looking for materials. I’ve been using a lot of technology because I feel the need to compete with it. They got really exited because of it and have been responding greatly. Rushness and stress are always present. Trying to give in everything in time is sometimes hard because there are many factors that can alter your schedule so I’m working with that part. This week I had to give in the group profile and time seem to be my enemy. I interviewd each student individually and it was tedious. In a future experience interviews will be the first thing I will conduct. I received a friendly visit from my supervisor this week and I was a bit neorvus, but felt comfortable once I knew the topics we were discussing. I had a problem with my practice group and is that none of them got my attention yet I had to select a case study for purposes o my practice teaching, but it was really hard selecting that student.
Finally I selected an outstanding student that has a hidden leader inside of ther and I have some ideas to enhance and engage the leader in her. I’m already giving classes based on the content that the teacher is giving and I feel secure of what I’m doing, but still there is a marging of error that eist and it scares me that some students may not understand they way I project the content. Until now they understand what is being giving and they had also created a connection with me even though I am still trying to connect.
Reflection #4 September 8-12, 2014 This week I started with the decorations of the English corner. My supervisor donated many things to me because her daughter is an English teacher as well. I got very exited and drove to school with my hands full. I handout the permit fro the pictures and videos I would need from my class. I’ve been in a transition of liking the teaching process to a constant frustruation with some teachers that seem to enjoy discouragement. But, there are still some of them motivated to teach and make a difference. I really like the school in general and I feel comfortable even though I try to keep distance in order not to join any click or gossip that might be going on. The director and other teachers help me a lot. My cooperating teacher is a very smart woman and she knows how to work with the students, so every good think I can adapt from her I do in order to grow. Still, I feel a bit stressed because I’m constantly helping in class, creating material and what not, but I feel I cdan handle the rush. This week I’ve been decorating and it’s looking great. All the students want to help me even if its standing beside me. They loke responsibility and the feeling of someone depending on them to do something worthy. Im worried with the consistency of teachers using behaviorism as the primary school of thought to gain control. This week I officially stated working alone and the topic is about opposites. I really like this topic because is very dynamic and the class is more interactive. The students really enjoyed the presentation and were vry respondent. They saw videos, short stories, songs and more and they were engaged into writing. (Which is something rare) I created a magical telescope which worked beautifully because every student wanted to shine for their behavior and good work. I also started working with the surprise box which apperantly stimulates the students and is rewarding for some and may be disappointing for a few. Someties I don’t want to use because, some students have the
tendency of being ungrateful for what they receive, but I still think is a good strategy. This week I had to report a mother that recorded the misbehavior of a student in order to send it to every parent so they could exclude him somehow from the group. What this mother did is against the law and she also recorded other students and me scolding the child, but not in an abusive way. I did it using behavioral techniques. When I saw the mother recording I stood up and told her that she could not do that and that she had to erase the video because it was against the law and still she wasn’t suppose to be there. The point is that I had to take action fast because that video could be harmful and could create a massive problem with the child’s parents. Since my appearance represents a 15 year old parents didn’t seem to respect me after this incident. It was tedious and for my first experience in this area and we had a meeting with the director, social worker and mother I think I managed it well because action was taken from the beginning. This same week I was preparing the proyector for the class and I was alone in the classroom. The door was unlocked because it cannot be closed from the inside. So, while Im preparing myself for my class the same mother that recorded the student (the first situation I had with a parent) open the door of my classroom and closed it in order to hit the student with a belt. I was in schock and I really din’t know what to do. I wanted to get in and take the belt out of her hands and at the same time I frozed and din’t know what position I should have assumed. He was also hitting and screaming at her. He was uncontrollable. I was the one who calmed him down and his mother ignored my presence completely. She din’t respect me, but she knew that I was the only one who could calm him in that moment. I had to report it and the matter was going to be persuade as soon as possible. I wrote a report and went to all my superiors with the situation.
Reflection #5 September 15-19, 2014 This week I finished the ecoration of one of the classrooms and kids loved it. I started the TWS test and it was tedious because I had to give one by one. Students don’t know how to read most of them don’t know how to associate words they have worked before in order to work with their memory. The first part I gave it to the entire group generally not per individual. Students din’t seem to know how to follow directions. It was frustruating because there was basically no time and student were not very respondant. I’ve notice that some of the outstanding students in the subject are depending only of their memory and what they learn for a test. So, acquisition is not taking place entirely and the learning process seems to be slow. I try to give a 90% of English and the other 10% in Spanish if they don’t seem to understand, but usually they say they never understand. I also receive a blog seminar on Wednesday and it was very good and constructive. I relearned how to work with it and learned other valuable information for the development of my blog. I found new motivation to create a great blog. On Friday I have a Basic Computer Workshop to parents and it was very dynamic and intense. They were like little kis, but they learned and were amazed about the wonders of technology. I tried to reinforced the importance
of them being updated with this new information, programs and social media in order to take care and help their children. I noticed that I’ve been acting like an assistant because I’m always on the run doing errands for teachers and they keep pilling up things on me and I don’t really know how to say no. It kind of scares e to say no because I am being evaluated and unfortunally I can be affected somehow even thought I expect professionalism and good feedback of the work I have done. Finally we also had an intense meeting where every faculty member was present and were being oriented about how teachers will be exposed to a pilot proposal to evaluate teachers and the efficiency of their work. It is a lot of paper work and more responsibilities that we have. The pilot proposal seems to be a good way to evaluate teachers in order to reduce mediocrity, but still is way too much work for us adding all the work and progress we have to achieve with students in so little time.
Reflection #6 September 22-26, 2014 For the past week my weekly lesson plan was affected because the homeroom teacher was absent. The students had a test on Wednesday and they don’t seem to dominate the concepts given in the test. It suprises me because we worked on those concept and skills for a long time and they still do not understand them. We were working with prepositions and we practice a lot. Many visuals were used in classroom and still many students had a difficult time with everything in the test. I don’t want to leave lacuna inside their heads, but the system obligates me to continue with the curricular maps. I believe that it is a difficult strategy because now days students won’t think and many of them even with the techonological advances are getting slower because of the dependence of this electronic devises. In other words technology is great and has brought many facilities and benefits but it can also be destructive, because they stop using their critical thinking as a result that everything is way accessible to them. This past week I’ve been noticing a lot of absence and that parents refute us teachers for their own irresponsibility. It is tiresome to deal with them. Since I enjoy languages so much and children are like sponges that absorb everything I’ve been integrating American Sign Language (ASL) into the class. The kids seem to love it. They are learning three languages: Spanish, English and the beauty of ASL. It is a benefit for them because I use it as a bonus in their test in order to help them in their lower grades but still , I implement another language for their personal and academic growth. I received a visit from my supervisor and at first I was nervous but then I relaxed and did my best as always, forgetting she was there. After speaking about my evaluation I felt confident and
proud of the results of my class. I’ve also been asked for more workshops and I usually coordinate with the librarian at my activity period. I’ve been correcting notebooks and many of the students commit the same grammatical mistakes and its weary to correct same thing all over again. On this week I took the students our of the classroom and used the facilities of the library in order to work on different topics and a story we were going to read. They had so much fun and we even role played the story at the end. I felt really proud of these two classes from my lesson plans because they were very effective , dynamic and fun. Even though my cooperating teacher was absent I kept going to school to keep my group to daFinally I experience a disappointing event this Friday. One of my favorite students hit, screamed and bit me. He has anger issues and he was fighting with a peer and I scolded him and he snaped on me in front of the whole group. He started speaking languages that I din’t even understood and throwing punches to the air before getting close to me. He screamed at me and ran. Unfortunally this was the son of the same mother I’ve been having troubles before (video recording and punishment of the child in front of me). When I went looking for the student again in order to talk to him and take him to his classroom he ignored me and kept walking and I stoped him with my hand. He got angry again and grabed my hand hitting me and biting me. I grabed him and took him to the director because I really felt so angry that I was scared my judgement would be clouded. I started crying and my heart was beating so fast I could hear it pumping the blood trhoug my body. I was very disappointed. This day I decided that even if I want to help my group by providing the class when my cooperating teacher is not there I shouldn’t. I think I managed the situation quite well, but it was very discouraging.
Reflection #7 September 29-30, 2014- October 1-3, 2014 I’ve been noticing how much time is lost with so much paper work, interruptions and attendance. Whenever the students or the teacher are absent everything goes off balance. This week there was a meeting towards the graduation class committee and other faculty members. I was helping in the lunchroom, and helping the injured students in the office. I was bored and tired of receiving so many complains about everything and everyone from them. It never seem to end. This week I prepared the reading comprehension test connected to the story we read in the library and I learned that I was being unsensible to a case that I was ignoring because it bothered me. Some of my students are slower than others and some seem to be distracted all the time. I misjudge them and since they were absent I had to make a reposition of the test with them. I notice how bright they are and how working alone they are more accurate than when they are with the group. I felt that I had neglected the situation and now I decided that one of my reasonable accommodations would individualized tests for students like them. I was happy with my group’s grades. This entire week I’ve been ignoring the student that hit and bit me and he has been expecting a lot of attention from me and he is receiving none. This ignoring issue has a purpose and is to let him know that he did something wrong. He needs to know the implications
of his actions and he has been working hard for me to notice him. This student is even writing and he was one of the few that din’t want to write at all. I had a meeting with his mother, the social worker and director. He apologized and school rules were reminded to him. His mother says that he has anger issues and we suggested her to get a type of treathim for him because he is always fighting and is something that will get out of control eventually.
Reflection #8 October 6-10, 2014 I was asked to tutor 5th graders I order to reinforce what is being taught in the classroom. Since the school is in the Focus Stage we need outstanding results in order to