Last Day of Field 2

Just as I was feeling like I really started to connect with students and felt 100% comfortable with the cooperating teacher and teacher’s aide, my field 2 experience came to an end today. Today was actually the most interesting day I have had in my kindergarten placement because so much was going on. Sam and I took Mrs. Noble and Ms. Johnson each a bouquet of flowers and a card and got Mrs. Noble a Starbucks gift certificate. Immediately after that one of the student came up to me and started hugging me (and Sam too) and saying she didn't want us to leave, which was sweet. Then she asked us where her present was because she had seen us give the cards and flowers to the teachers. I think that Sam and I have spoiled them and the student teacher bribes them with candy on a daily basis, so the students (or some of them may expect it now). I told her I didn't have anything for her but I am planning on sending little simple thank you cards to each of the students in the mail (address as attn: Mrs. Noble and then the student's name and the address for Harbor View). Even if I just write, "it was fun getting to know you and you helped me learn a lot about teaching through working with you," I think the students will be excited to get something in the mail and it will be fun.

Sam and I had the opportunity today to do a chapter assessment with the tool we did our showcase assessment tool on, which was, the Trophies Harcourt Reading Unit Assessment. It was so neat to get to assess each student and work with them one-on-one for one final time. All but two of my students got 100% of the chapter I was assigned to correct. The other two, got 7/8 and 6/8. I was very pleased that my case study student was beginning to start to sound out word, which she has not done in the past and I know that a 6/8 for her is fantastic and a major improvement!

Today was also field day, which was really fun to watch and the students were so excited. I stood with Laura, Theresa, Dr. White, and Sam and discussed funny stories from the field and we all watched the students participate in field day together. It was very amusing and interesting because I have never had the opportunity to observe students in a PE class or using their gross-motor skills (except for on the playground and ECDC's PE).

After the field day activity, Sam and I finished the few students that both of us had to assess and then Abigail's mother came in to do an art project with the class. I was totally pumped because I got to do the art project too. There were 5 tables of students and so each adult had our own table of students (Mrs. Noble, Ms. Johnson, Abigail’s mom, Sam, and I). The project was to make origami butterflies out of beautiful large sheet of paper that was double sided-one side with a design/pattern and the other with a textured wash. We went step by step and they turned out fantastic. One of the students at my table, according to Ms. Johnson, is a perfectionist and he started to cry and say", I hate it", and "I hate my piece of paper I got", and then just cry about how his was not lining up perfectly. I kept telling him that art should be fun and that I thought his was good, but he kept crying and whining and started to say, "I want my mom". Mrs. Noble and Mrs. Johnson could not get him to calm down and change his attitude around either. I tried helping him line everything up but it seemed that once he started to whine and cry, he was not going to stop, regardless. Mrs. Noble sent him to go sit in the book center. I was very surprised because this boy in my lessons was the hardest to get to listen and to stop fidgeting and always had to touch all of the materials, often dumping them out. I never would have guessed that a student, who cannot sit still, would be a perfectionist. That is an interesting combination. When I was his age (actually even younger), I was a little similar, although not as hard to manage. My mom always tells me the story of how I used to stand in front of the easel in pre-school and refuse to paint because I could see in my mind what I wanted to paint but I knew I did not have the fine motor skills to do so I would refuse and when they put a brush in my hand, I would scribble all over the paper for 2 seconds and then take off my smock and move onto something else. I have always loved art since I could hold a crayon/marker/paintbrush/etc. but I have always been very perfectionist and hard on myself. Today I would not consider myself a perfectionist at all but I learned that when you hold yourself to impossible standards it really sucks the fun out of it. With all of that being said, I guess my point is that I never realized what I probably looked like complaining about how bad my work was when it was not and how silly and pointless it was. I am also now aware that it must have been somewhat annoying for people to have to put up with me and deal with it. It is really difficult. I am now very curious on how to deal with children who are perfectionists, and also because when conducting the assessment, I had many students take a really long time filling in the bubbles for their answers, making sure that they did not go outside of the lines and that they filled in the whole bubble perfectly. I had always kind of thought that this was more of a "girl thing" (I know that is a stereotype, which is bad-especially because my anti-bias unit is on gender identity and fairness, which covers gender stereotypes), however, many boys, in fact, I think more than girls, demonstrated this.

I am so happy with my field 2 placement and experience and I decided that kindergarten as of this point would be my ideal grade to teach, if given the option, which I filled out on my clinical evaluation form last week. Even so, I cannot wait for my next field, in which I will hopefully be placed in a first or 2nd grade classroom. I have found that these field classes have really helped to bridge the gap between the material I am learning in courses and how to apply that material.