University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo
REFLECTION #3 September 1-5, 2014
The third week at my practice teaching was very interesting. Monday I did not give class because my cooperating teacher couldn’t come because she was sick. The next day I was teaching my class a continuation about Unit 3.1: What makes Puerto Rico Unique? I had my lesson planned out with a few nice activities but it did not work out. I did not get through with everything I planned. I started out pretty good and the class was quiet and calm at the beginning but when they started working on the vocabulary words my class went out of my control which made teaching even harder. I tried many things to control them, I walked around the classroom, looked at them, and raised my hand so they would be silent but none of that worked. There was a student named J____ who would not stay still. He would talk back to me and when I asked him a question he brusquely said to my face I was “una presentá” and the teacher had to intervene. I have a big group and five students are from special education program, but none of them have an attention problem, or autism, they all have specific problems of learning and only one student takes medicine and was recommended by the special education program a distraction reduction. The next day I tried to do the activities on my lesson plan that I could not do the day before and it was even harder than the day before. This day I had three students acting up, but J____ the one acting up the day before was pretty calm to my amazement. That
University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo
Wednesday A_____, I_________ and H_______ were acting up. They would not follow instructions. The teacher also called their attention but they were just out of control. One of the students got up, took the answers to the review and ripped the paper. I told warned him that he would receive a letter to his parent and Gina said yes because that was unacceptable behavior. I sent three letters to the students that had been misbehaving all week, and only one mother came by to follow up on her son, H_____. She told us she punished him by not taking him to baseball practice that day. She was a struggling mother and I could feel the weight she had not only with him but with her other children. She was a single mom raising three boys, two that are from the special education program, and one of them was not an integrated student. She expressed her frustrations with us and with tears in her eyes said she did not know what else to do with H______. She told us she was in depression because of him and had to visit a psychiatrist and so did he. I asked her if he acted this way at home and she said yes. After meeting Hectors mom my heart really went out for her, and Gina suggested he was a good choice for a case study but I had already chosen Alex. After thinking for a few minutes, I decided to change my case study student and chose H_______. I know it is going to be more than a challenge, but I want to try and help in whichever way I can or find the help they need. H______ is a funny boy. He is so small in stature, maybe the smallest of the boys but huge in personality. He may be all though and talk back to me but I have hope in him. I believe he can change and better himself and I believe I can better myself too. In the future, I don’t want to be sending behavioral reports to tell the parents their son/daughter misbehaved but how well they behaved in class. I already have
University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo
those positive feedback cards made and ready so when one of my students does something great in class, I can send it to their parents so they know what great kids they have. I’m still learning how this all works, and I’m reading and orienting myself on how to work with confrontational students because I know that I don’t have them just because there are residentials in front of me. Even if I went to a private school, I will face these type of students and I want to be prepared on how to handle it adequately and succeed doing it.