Field Observation 1

Well on Wednesday I finally did it! Finally I was able to walk down the halls of an elementary school building and meet my third grade host teacher and the students! As I was walking to the school I felt all my nerves gather up inside. Literally hundreds of tiny butterflies were flapping their wings against my stomach. Sure I had been around children before but never in such a structured setting as a school classroom. As I walked towards the room my mind kept repeating a mantra of questions: Would the students like me? Could I really handle impacting how a student learned a lesson? Would the students feel comfortable enough with me? Would they even let me help them? But I was pleasantly surprised just how easily the day went after I got over my initial uneasiness.

The students were actually very interested in what I spoke about. When I went to introduce myself and described that I enjoyed reading, sports, watching shows that the students might also enjoy, and playing video games, I took note on how the students responded. Many of them went on to say that they also loved reading, played a variety of sports (cheerleading, soccer, football, etc.), and almost everyone said he or she enjoyed playing video games too! The students then asked me questions and my favorite things and took great delight that I was able to understand exactly what they were talking about when speaking about their favorite things.

My host teacher even had me read aloud a book to the students about Abraham Lincoln. Now here was something that I knew all about: making stories sound fun and interesting to others. The students were engaged in the reading as I asked them questions about various points in the book.

Later on in the day there was a small grammar lesson and ditto for the students to work on. During that time I was able to walk around the room and assist students when they had a question or appeared to be struggling with a certain question. I noticed that some students looked up at me when I walked by just to make sure that I was there if they needed me. I was amazed at how some of the students were at completing the ditto! Some of them even were writing out there answers in cursive! Wow!

One of the last things I was able to do was help a student one-on-one. The student and I went out into the hallway and worked on correcting her math ditto that she completed earlier in the morning. I helped the student look back at the problems, re-read the word problems and discover where she struggled in finding the correct solution. She was able to pick up on her mistakes pretty quickly and I was patient on the parts where she had trouble coming to the answer.

Even after my first visit I know that I will still be nervous each time that I go in to do my hours. Being a teacher is nerve-racking but I think that these are good nerves. I am not dreading it. Instead I am excited and cannot wait to see what I can teach the students. More importantly I cannot wait to see what they teach me!