It is possible to interpret without observing, but not to observe without interpreting.

This was my observing week. It was nice to not have lesson plans but I still had my work cut out for me! I saw a guidance lesson over smoking, a 4/5th combination reading class, I watched a few of my students in lessons in the level one room, I observed in the severe and profound room, and I spent a morning with the pre-school students. It was a lot to take in for a short time.

I learned something from each place. It was interesting watching the guidance councilor teach about smoking to the fifth graders because he was very blunt about the subject and so was the text. It basically laid out the fact that smoking kills people and tells about how. He also tells them about the different chemicals that are used in cigarettes. I remember learning about them but it was more telling us just that they were ‘bad for you’ and a few of the side effects. After the teacher told about cigarettes they read about an uncle that died from lung cancer. It seems that they are trying to scare the kids more than anything. I guess if it works then why not? If my generation was taught this way there would also be less smokers. And maybe this is why there are less and less smokers every year.
It was really fun watching the pre-schoolers as well. A lot of people think it’s just babysitting, but its way more than that. They started out by reading a book about scarecrows. The teacher is trying to get the students used to sitting in one place, looking forwards and listening. It seems that even at 3 years old we are trying to mold our students for the typical school setting. Then she had a few riddles the students were supposed to figure out. They seemed to really enjoy this! Then as a way to help them learn their names each has it written on a plate and they are supposed to pick theirs up and hand it to the teacher before going off for breakfast. Some of them have become really clever because they’ve learned the process of elimination. If they wait for the other students to pick theirs then they have fewer names to choose from. Then at breakfast they are trying to teach the students about family style meals and how to pour their own glass of milk. It was really interesting watching and listening to the students conversations.
The 4/5th grade class was kind of uneventful. I watched the reading lesson then they broke off into small reading groups. I was surprised that they were working on some really difficult stuff like possessive plural nouns and idioms. I don’t remember learning about some of this stuff till later. I can tell it’s also really challenging for some of the students as well. One girl I sat by wasn’t able to read words very well because she had a hard time breaking the sounds apart, how is she expected to read the sentence then to identify the idiom? It was also interesting to watch this class because the teacher was a male. I find it fun to see how students react to the different teachers. I think it’s also important to understand so that you know what to expect going into the classroom as either a male or female. In some ways I’m jealous of the guys because it seems that they can often use their masculinity to get more attention,.
Unfortunately there was a sub in the sever and profound room and she didn’t have any notes, but it was still interesting to watch the associates. I sat in the back and acted as if I was just the fly on the wall. It was awesome how they worked with the kids and was able to help them. They were watching a television show, Dora, and then they talked about how each student liked certain shows and which shows some of the students hated. I only spent a short time in the room because I was originally going to watch a whole group lesson but since the teacher wasn’t their they were just having them watch some shows. I think this is a room I would love to go back and see more of. As a teacher I also want to learn about the equipment that the room uses. It seems that since I’m not taking any special education classes I really don’t have any exposure to that stuff.
Well tomorrow is another field trip and we’ve been harder on the students today and talked a lot about how they are supposed to behave. I hope this goes a lot better than our last time!