You are always learning.

Hi, guys!

  Sorry, I haven't been writing that often these past couple of weeks. College classes have started again and I have been really busy. In addition to our assignments and assessments, we have to complete a certain amount of observation hours in a classroom. I had to do 32 hours in total. I love it! It is boring but i'm learning a lot. Below I will explain some of the things I have observed and learned from the classrooms.

I had to do 2 hours in a K-1-2 classroom. I got put into a Kindergarten classroom. It was fun. I am used to Kindergarteners because I teach an arts and crafts class for Vacation Bible School and I love it but I don't think I can teach them all the time. I learned some classroom management skills that I can use when I start teaching.

I then had to do 2 hours in a 3-4-5 classroom. I was placed in a 4th grade English class. I liked it. I learned some classroom management skills and things I can do in my future classroom. It's interesting what I learned from sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher teach.

My favorite observations was at a local middle school. I had never been to that middle school before but once I walked through the door, I fell in love. The middle school is an at-risk school. It is the type of school that if you teach there for 5 years, your loans will be paid off. That wasn't what drawn me to the school. I loved the atmosphere of it. The faculty and staff loved the students. They wanted them to succeed.

Two of my hours had to be in a collaborative classroom. Collaborative education is when special education kids are in the same classroom as general education kids. The collaborative education teacher is in the classroom to help them if they need it but they are still being taught by a general education teacher. I loved it. I spent an hour in the teacher's classroom just talking to her since she had no students. I learned a lot from her. I learned some teaching methods to use if I have a collaborative student in my classroom. I then spent an hour in the general education class with her. It was interesting to see how it worked. Special needs kids hold a special place in my heart anyway. Before I decided on being an English teacher, I thought about teaching special needs kids. It still passes through my mind but I don't know if I can handle seeing them like that every day.

I spent 26 hours in a 6th grade English class. I loved it. My teacher was amazing. She loved her students and her job. She wanted to be a teacher. You could see that she loves being at the school. I also developed a pretty good relationship with her. I realized after watching her and her classroom that I made a good choice.

I really wouldn't change my major for anything. These observation hours have shown me that teaching is what I want to do. I want to do some of the same things as the teachers I observed.