teaching journal

teaching journal

The first day of my field experience was picture day. I think it is an important day to write about because of the magnitude of importance that students place on it. Thinking back to my own picture day I can recall being extremely worried that I was going to look sweaty because of recess. The emphasis that middle school students place on this day is important to note. That is why I think this event is so significant.
I walked into my mentoring teacher’s room and tried to soak everything up. I noticed that some students were obviously dressed for the photograph. The picture would likely hang somewhere important to them or their families. Other students lacked the polished look. I thought this was significant because the students who for whatever reason weren’t dressed for picture day behaved in a manner that concerned me. One student had two different socks on. I could feel her sinking into the back of the classroom, reluctant to raise her hand. I realized, based on my second observation of her behavior that this was abnormal for her. She didn’t seem comfortable and her participation was compromised because of it.
I was then disappointed that the teacher passed out the picture day envelopes in from of the whole class. She of course did not have one and I watched her try to disappear. The class was standing in a line as the envelopes were passes out. The teacher then said to the five remaining students, “If you forgot to give me your envelope this morning you may get it from your book bag now.” All five students pretended to look and came back empty handed and embarrassed.
This relates to me as a future teacher because it is important to be aware of how the students are feeling. I think that if put in a similar teaching situation I would have handled it completely differently. And that’s important to learn to do things in other ways when you observe them not working. This is just as important as learning from the positive. As discussed last class,...