Field Visit #1

We were finally able to visit our second grade class after several snow days and delayed starts. When we arrived at 9:30 we learned that the school was on a 2 hour delay because of the weather and that the students wouldn't be arriving until 10:00. Fortunately Mr. F. had already arrived (he also didn't get the message about the delay) so we were able to spend some time planning our unit with him. It was a good example of the necessity to adapt and be flexible in teaching as well as the importance of being productive in the time that you have. Mr. F. told us that we would be teaching our unit on ancient Egypt and we discussed times/dates that we could administer a pretest and teach. Although I'm excited about the topic, it's also a little frustrating to have no more direction than that. I want to make sure that we are teaching the students is meaningful (and not repetitive), but it's difficult when we don't have a lot of guidance. This is one of those moments where I appreciate the SOLs. They are so detailed that it gives you a good idea of where to at least start. Ancient Egypt is such a broad topic, but the SOLs really direct your attention and give you an idea about what should be addressed. Once you have that basic framework, it's easier to expand from there and bring in more information.

When the students arrived at 10:00, they were so excited to see us. It was nice to see how much they enjoyed our lessons and how happy they were to have us back. We went to the "Student of the Week" assembly with the rest of the school (a good idea, but it became very repetitive and boring) and then came back to the classroom to participate in Chinese New Year activities. Several parent volunteers came to the class to help them make dumplings and a sort of Chinese hackeysack. I really liked the idea of these activities, but they did not seem very purposeful. I think that it would have helped if the class had at least read a book explaining the Chinese New Year. Many of the students seemed confused about why they were doing these crafts. There is even a Chinese student in the class whose mom was a volunteer; it would have been nice to see her talk a little about her Chinese heritage. These were activities that I would definitely want to include in my future classroom, but I think that it's also important to make them meaningful. There has to be a purpose or a connection, whether it be to social studies, literacy, science, etc., or else the students won't understand the point of what they're doing.

I was also struck by the overall behavior of the class. Mr. F. has told us repeatedly that this class is known for being particularly rowdy, but I also feel as though proper discipline could make a huge difference. When the students came in the classroom this morning, Mr. F. started calling out names asking what students wanted for lunch while the rest of the students ran around the classroom talking loudly to each other. If this were my class, I would require that each student go to their seat and read quietly or work on some sort of warm-up activity. This is just one example of a time when things get pretty chaotic in the classroom, but overall the behavior management just isn't there. Mr. F. seems exhausted from trying to keep everyone under control, and it scares me to think that I could one day have a class like this.