My thoughts

So far I have really loved my student teaching experience.  My teacher is wonderful and very helpful.  We also have a class of only 12 students in the morning and only 7-8 stay through the afternoon, which makes it an ideal place to begin teaching!  Although the class is small, there is a lot of diversity among students in SES, ethnicity, and development.  One child came into Kindergarten reading while several cannot write their names and do not recognize any letters.  We have students that speak German, Spanish, or Telugu in their homes, but all are also fluent in English.  One of our girls has special needs and gets some extra help for a short amount of time each week.

I have loved watch my teacher interact with the class.  One memorable moment came when a girl was very upset at lunch because her chair was different from everybody else's.  The teacher saw just how big of a deal it was to this girl and went over and told her how special she was because she got to sit in the princess chair!  The girl was still insisting it was terrible and she was upset and so the teacher asked the other students if someone wanted to have a chance to sit in the special princess chair for the day.  One of the other girls was so excited to sit there so they switched seats!  I was amazed at the teacher's ability to diffuse the situation while making everyone happy...I would have just said that's the chair you have so sit in it for today.  It reminds me that some things can be a major deal to children that adults may not get, but we shouldn't so easily dismiss how a child is feeling.

I am also benefiting greatly from watching the teacher's discipline style.  I have always been able to get the children who listen to listen to me ;) but the difficult or disrespectful child has always been a struggle for me.  I've found that it is okay to use different tones and corrections with different children.  There is one boy in class who has to be told regularly that he cannot talk back to the teacher and he needs to talk nicely to his friends.  With lots of practice and help from my much more experienced teachers I have begun to develop a way of disciplining that I am comfortable with and the students respect.

In general I am just so grateful to have a class where I feel free to observe and learn but also practice what I'm learning.  I feel so prepared to teach my unit next week and really be in charge of the classroom all day long because so much care has been taken to give me the needed practice time!