Observation #1

Catherine and I were very excited to get back to our second graders that we had gotten to know so well last semester. We walked into school at 9:30 a.m., however, only to find out that the school system had declared a two-hour delay for that morning. We had not even thought to check the website for any weather-related changes; we were almost certain that the schools had maxed out on their snow days that week. Lesson learned, though. I will most certainly check ahead of time before going to a school whenever there is the slightest chance of a cancellation or delay.

The half an hour we had before the children arrived at school, though, was time well spent. We were able to sit down with Mr. F. and catch up on how our assignments for the semester were going to pan out. Like last semester, it did not seem that he was aware of our assignments for EDIS 488 and we had to fill him in on the unit we were to teach at some point during the semester. As expected, he was very gracious in saying that it was completely up to us to teach whatever we desired and that he would change his schedule around accordingly. We have always appreciated the freedom he has given us in his classroom but at times it is frustrating. We would like some guidance as to what his students are going to be learning for the rest of the semester or maybe even what subject he would like for us to cover.

We urged him to lead us somewhere in the direction of social studies because we did not want to teach material he had already taught. By his response, it seems that planning may not be his strength. He informed us that they will be doing China and Egypt for the next month or so and he went to consult another second grade teacher on the potential calendar for when they were going to be teaching what. After a good twenty minutes of looking at our calendars, we finally decided on the dates we are going to be teaching a lesson on ancient Egypt, leaving room in the second grade schedule for a couple of weeks for Mr. F. to instruct on the similarities and differences between ancient China and ancient Egypt.

It was great to see the students’ faces as they arrived at school. It made me realize how much I had missed them! I think they were just as excited to see us. There were lots of “Miss Brown and Miss Robinson are back!” floating around the classroom. We followed Mr. F’s class into the weekly assembly where the school was announcing all of the classrooms’ students of the week. I enjoyed being in the auditorium with the entire school, a chance to see the greater student body and realize that Mr. F. was just one class of many in the elementary school. Mr. F. had warned us that the morning was going to be chaotic and we really saw that take into effect when a few moms came in to show the second grade how to make dumplings and Chinese hackeysacks to celebrate the Chinese New Year. The hackeysacks were pretty complex to make and should not have been explained to the students as a whole group in the hallway; I believe that these younger students should have more direct instruction in smaller groups. It is just so hard for this class to pay attention as it is and being in a hallway with other classes does not help. The fewer distractions when you are explaining something, the better! Nonetheless, it is obvious that the children like hands-on activities so I could see the purpose behind doing such activities. I also got to see the eagerness of some of the parents to be involved. It made me sad, though, to think about the students whose parents could not care less about their child’s second grade experience.

All in all, I think I am most excited to be back with our second graders because I cannot wait to see how they have progressed in school since we saw them last. I am eager to see how they have developed their reading and writing skills. I am also a little anxious to see how our unit is going to pan out, but I have to keep reminding myself that though we lack experience and therefore take a while to plan lessons, we are going through a major learning process that has worked out so far, so why should we worry now?