I was very excited walking in to my classroom yesterday. The kids as soon as they saw me greeted me enthusiastically. I will admit that at first I didn't think they would like me simply because they had another student for their class last semester. Yesterday also presented itself with how a teacher must accommodate with different challenges the day might bring. For example, my teacher relies heavily on the Active board. All of her flip charts and notes are on the system, but yesterday it decided to stop working. She tried for a few minutes to get it to work, but when she realized there was no use she directed the class in a different direction. Instead, she handed out copies of a text and the students began to read over it and paraphrase what they had read. As a teacher, it is good to introduce and use different technologies in the classroom, however, since it can also be very  unreliable it is good to plan for when things don't work out a certain way. I was most excited when I was able to work with two kids individually. These students fall behind the rest of the class. Their ability to read and write are not as high up. I worked with them and helped them get their thoughts in order by asking them to tell me things they had learned. Then I helped them write by sounding off whatever word they did not know how to write.Sometimes it was difficult for them, but I managed to keep them focus and try their best. It was  great knowing I was helping these two students be able to succeed in the classroom and that my teacher trusted me to do this.

Part 1
We learned the importance of drills to practice how we should react under those circumstances. Yesterday, we experienced an unplanned fire drill. All the seniors were at the assembly, while the lower grade levels were in their study halls. The students and teachers who were in their classroom knew exactly the procedure to follow. They headed to their their designated areas, while the teachers maintained order as to where their class was. As I has heading outside, I even saw some classes that were lined up oputside. However, the seniors that were in the auditorium had to follow a different kind of procedure. The handful of teachers didnt have a roster to know where exactly their students were. Also, we just headed outside without sticking with our class. It wasn't too chaotic, but we did move slightly slowly considering it could have been a real fire. That's just because there are only two exits in the auditorium. After the fire drill, we all headed back to the assembly. Considering the circumstances, I believe the fire drill went well because we still knew the procedure.

Part 2
Our guest speaker discussed how prominent stereotypes are. People guide themselves by what they see and judge a person before spending the time to get to know them. We have all been a part of this. It is really easy to simply stereotype a person especially when we know nothing about them. I think in these times, stereotyping has become more evident in school and everywhere. Minorities are usually seen as uneducated or lazy. In most cases, it is quite the opposite. It is important to make an attempt to stop stereotyping in order to reduce hostility among dirrefent groups of people and instead try to become a more unified community. instead of judging people based on myths we've heard, we should treat each person as what they are, an individual with different strengths and weaknesses. reducing steroetypes will open our eyes to see the potential of each person and not shut them down before even knowing them. Stereotypes hinder each group from moving forward.

January 13th 2011

I was very excited going back to the elementary and getting back into the classroom. I decided to stay with the same teacher and students because I wanted to stay consistent. However, I was kind of disappointed when I realized there was a different group of students. Last semester, the teachers rotated classes. My teacher was involved with reading and writing and then the students rotated to another teacher for math. This semester, however, the teachers decided to keep their homeroom students and teach all subjects. My teacher had to adapt to the changes. She has never taught math before so she's been getting help from a different teacher as to how she should approach this. This will be an interesting experience as it will allow me to see more than just reading and writing. I'm also excited to meet a whole new group of kids and work with them as much as possible. They were a little off guard by me at first, but the more I helped them the more they began to trust me. Also, my teacher rearranged the room for this new semester. By rearranging the room, she made the classroom atmosphere more exciting and workable. Something I really admire about my teacher is how she engages the students in the activities and how involved she is with them. She has a good teacher-student relationship and you can tell the students really respect her. She handles problems really well too. I cant wait to see what this semester has in store for me.