Moreland Hills Elementary School Visit #3

Upon walking in to Mrs. Newman's second grade classroom, every student was quiet and attentive at their seats.  They were working on a math packet and answering questions together as a class.  Hanging from the ceiling, there were many decorations from Halloween and now for Thanksgiving.  When I sat down, I was asked to grade the student's math time tables.  Some children were working on their addition, some subtraction and some multiplication.  Mrs. Newman explained that if they received higher than an 85% on their test, they could move up a level to the harder questions.  After checking each paper, I then had to enter their grades into the grade system.  After the math lesson, the students were asked to take out their packets about the US.  They had to cut out each map they filled out and then glue them to colorful pieces of paper.  Some students needed assistance cutting and putting the paper in the right spot so it was my job to walk around and help them.  Today it seemed as though everyone, including Mrs. Newman, was tired and not in the best mood so the students weren't very focused towards the end of the day.  After the students finished pasting, they were asked to clean up every piece of paper and glue stick and return to their seats.  Mrs. Newman began counting down to alert the students their desks needed to be spotless and they needed to be seated.  I feel like this tactic always works because the children never want to know what happens after 0.  That is something I will definitely do when I am in charge of my own classroom.  Lastly, the students then packed up their belonging and I walked with them down to their special of the day, which was art.

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My time in this class has really made me think deeply about what I need to do in my future classroom.  Through the helpful books we have read, I understand that not everyone is the same and although it may not be easy, I have to learn to provide for everyone's needs.  I also learned how crucial it is to "build a bridge" for students at a young age so they are well prepared for their next school year.  I really enjoyed the group projects we completed becaue I feel that they allowed me to get closer to other students with the same viewpoints as me.  Working with other students also gave me better ideas and made me think of things I had never thought of before.  I see now what is important to enforce in order for children to grow as individuals.  By observing classrooms on my own and with the class, I have become even more excited to pursue this career path and learn more about how to create a good environment.  I really like that we have the opportunity to visit other schools as freshmen because this allows us to see how things truly work and inspires us for our future classrooms.  I feel that this class has truly prepared me for what is ahead with my own education and my future as well.

FieldBlog Post #3

Today we visited the Agnon School.  I was very interested to see how the school worked since we were told that the school was based on art and the students were allowed to address their teachers by their first names.  I was assigned to a kindergarten classroom along with three other students.  When we walked in, the students were already starting and I noticed how colorful and cheery the classroom was.  I noticed that each item in the room was labeled and there was a certain place for everything, which the students had access to.  First Michelle, one of the teachers, started the kids out with a song that they sang and danced to until they sat down on one of their spots on the floor.  After they were seated, she asked the students to write the weather, the day of school and the day of the week on the SmartBoard.  She then had them repeat some songs to her first in English and then in Hebrew.  I was very surprised to see how much these kindergartners knew.  They then were allowed to wash their hands and find their morning snack but only after they explained, in Hebrew, where their snack came from and how it was made.  She then had the students pray before opening their food.  My question before this trip was how much discipline do these children receive if they are free to do mostly what they want and they are allowed to call their teacher by their first name? However, right when I got to the classroom I could see how well behaved these kids were! They were all very obedient and almost seemed too mature to be kindergartners.  One thing I found extremely interesting was when a student wasn't doing what they were supposed to, one of the teachers would quietly go up to the student and ask "do you think that was a very good decision?"  The student would then say no and immediately improve their behavior.  I really liked that she did not yell at her students or punish them but rather question them to see if they realized their mistake.  I learned that calmly approaching a situation can really work to help the child behave better, if you go about it the right way.  I hope in my future classroom I can use this tactic to create a calm environment for my students.  Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time at this school and thought their method of teaching was extremely effective.  Although I was hesitant about how the school worked, I saw how bright and unique it made each student.

Moreland Hills Elementary School Visit #2

On Friday, Mrs. Newman thought it would be a good idea for me to come observe the classroom because it was Halloween.  She stressed how crazy the children get and how busy it is at the school but she wanted me to see "how it really was."  Before I even walked into my classroom, I could tell how wound up every kid was because later that day they would have a Halloween party and parade in the school.  By the time I got there, kids were already starting to put their costumes on and they were running wild across the classroom.  Mrs. Newman looked stressed and asked me to help dress the kids up in their costumes.  Next, the children were told to sit down in their seats quietly before the parade started.  They were then explained that they were to form a single file line and be very quiet or they were not allowed to walk.  Mrs. Newman told me that each year on Halloween, every class got to walk down the hallways and outside around the school building to show off their cool costumes which I thought was a fun way to get some energy out.  As we walked, the younger children looked in awe at the 2nd graders and complimented their costumes.  Parents were even allowed to line the hallways and take pictures of their child as they walked by which made the school even more packed than it already was!  Once we got outside, we saw all the other grades walking around and the students were allowed to briefly greet their other friends.  Then, we went back inside and prepared for the party at the end of the day.  The kids were told that there are three stations: the snack table, the craft table and the game area.  Mrs. Newman asked me if I could be in charge of the game area, which I was thrilled to help.  Some kids started snacking while some made little ghost figures out of tissues and lollipops while the others got paired up on the rug and prepared to mummify their partner.  Each child was given a roll of toilet paper and the goal was to make the best mummy out of the group and then they could change stations.  The children loved wrapping each other up and Mrs. Newman loved that they were busy.  Even though the entire classroom was hectic and the kids were rambunctious, it did not drive me away from my desire of being an early childhood teacher.  This experience showed me that some days, kids need a break to be a little crazy but it can be fun for the teacher too!

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Many different factors make a school "good."  The most important factor is the safety of the children.  As Deborah Meier explains, "to create a safe school, we needed to have the confidence of parents, and children needed to know that their parents trusted us," (144).  The next most important thing is making the education about the students in order for them to grow as individuals.  Meier also shares, "good early childhood education, we believed, required collaboration between the school and the family," (144).  I feel that the classroom size effects a student's learning as well.  If there are too many kids in a classroom, they can't focus on what they are being taught and they will not have a personal relationship with their teacher.  The conditions of the school also effect the learning process as well.  If the school is run down or needs repairs it may be unsafe for a child to attend.  A good school is one that focuses on helping students develop and prepares them for the next school year.  This can't be done without good teachers.  A student needs their teacher to push and encourage them to try and get good grades.  A teacher can't give up on his or her students, no matter the circumstances.  From my personal experience in elementary school, the teachers stopped teaching us the curriculum and became very irritated because they felt there was no hope for us to succeed.  This made us as students feel helpless and very unprepared for our next school year.  Unfortunately, my school closed when I was in 5th grade because there was no money to support the school and only 119 children attended in kindergarten through 8th grade.  There wasn't enough space for all of us and there weren't good facilities to learn in.  A good school gives students many opportunities to learn every subject in school and activities out of school to be involved in.  Another factor that is important in a good school is diversity.  Accepting others, no matter how different they may be, is key for every child to learn in order to be successful people in the future.  A school needs to be open to any situation that may arise and offer to accommodate students to whatever they may need.





Canestrari, Alan S., and Bruce A. Marlowe. Educational Foundations: An Anthology of Critical Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013. Print.

FieldBlog Post 2: Heights High

At Heights High, I felt very different than when I was at Beachwood Middle School.  This could have been because this was a high school with bigger students or because the atmosphere in general felt very different.  Immediately after entering the school, I noticed the many security guards lining the hallway and I was very curious as to why.  After walking down the hallway to my assigned location, I witnessed a teacher calling security on a student walking into her classroom and I felt that this was very odd.  I was placed in Dr. Eaton's science classroom.  The group we were observing only had 2 boys and 5 girls.  These students were sophomores and were learning about compounds and elements in this particular class.  When I first walked in, I felt the room was rather dull compared to other schools I've observed.  There were hardly any posters on the wall or decorations, there were only a few desks and tables.  Around me, there was a mass amount of lab equipment and on the wall there was a smart board displaying slides for the class.  The students seemed very attentive and involved in what the teacher was saying.  I really liked that Dr. Eaton put a slide up and explained it and then encouraged her students to take out their whiteboards and answer a question to show that they understand what each slide was teaching them.  This allowed for individual comprehension among each student because they had to write their own answer out and hold it up for Dr. Eaton to see.  I felt that Dr. Eaton was very good and making sure each student understood what she was explaining and was very patient with the students that weren't getting the right answers.  She had a very controlled classroom because she was not very stern at all however, no one was acting out.
My question for this observation was how does the discipline differ from a middle school to a high school?  I noticed that the discipline was different because the teachers at Heights High were treating their students as adults rather than sensitive children.  The discipline has to be more intense for these students because at that age, you never know what might happen.  As for middle school students, they are just starting to grow up and understand how things work so they don't need as intense discipline.  Also, these students obey their elders where high school students may not.  After observing here, I confirmed that I could never be a high school teacher.  Younger children may be harder to take care of at times, but I would not be able to control high school students.

Week 7/8 Post

During the week, we read chapters 4 and 7 of To Teach the journey in comics.  We learned about "building a bridge" for students and how to achieve greatness as a teacher.  With the bridge metaphor, I felt that Ayers means each student needs to work together in the classroom to make a positive learning environment for everyone.  He also means the students and their parents should have a good connection with their teacher in order for the learning process and shaping of each individual student to begin.  I feel that the "bridge" starts with little to no knowledge of things and grows into higher, more complicated knowledge that will be necessary later in life.  One example of a pattern is building a person's knowledge from childhood to adulthood as in each grade level increases knowledge by building off the previous grade.  A second example is allowing the children to learn from each other and not be afraid to ask questions in order to be better prepared for the next grade.
I decided to make a lesson plan about poem styles for elementary school students in order to instill a sense of creative thinking in each child.  I would first need to explain what a poem is and read a few simple ones to the class.  I then would go into more detail and give specific examples of different kinds of poems such as a haiku or a rhyming poem.  I would also need to take into account that these students are in elementary school and they may not yet be capable of comprehending and writing deep, lengthy poems.  Therefore, I could create a guideline for them to copy off of in order to make their first poem because I would not be expecting them to correctly come up with them on their own.  Next, I would give them an easy topic and ask them to practice each style in class and show it to me so I could help them with spelling and word choice.  Lastly, I would encourage each student to read their poem to the class to get used to comfortably speaking to their peers.  I feel that this lesson would encourage them to increase their vocabulary by finding new words to rhyme with and inspire their creativity even more.
In chapter 10 of Educational Foundations, Robert DiGiulio discusses the stress of becoming a teacher and the pressure put on teachers to take care of children while helping them succeed in life and receive good test scores.  DiGiulio writes, "No standardized test for students can ever inform us of a teachers' enthusiasm, caring, or belief that students can be successful-- three factors that have an enormous effect on student achievement and self-esteem," (127).  In other words, it is more important for the teacher to have a personality and be a role model for his or her students.  To be a successful teacher, one must have successful students, "And, to achieve student success, great teachers help move their students via three paths: producing, empowering and connecting," (DiGiulio 129).  Everyone focuses so much on the academic aspect of school and who is the smartest and who will get into the best college but at the end of the day, it is more important to be a selfless, well rounded person that achieves greater things than a high standardized test score.

Canestrari, Alan S., and Bruce A. Marlowe. Educational Foundations: An Anthology of Critical Readings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2013. Print.