Field Week 1

Hey everyone. I hope all of you have had a wonderful first week in field. If you’re anything like I am, all of the emotion and anxiety about the first day of field has now turned to excitement and an eagerness to get to the classroom every day. I thoroughly enjoy the school and teacher that I have the opportunity to work with. It was an easy transition from feeling nervous to taking the hands on approach which was to dive right in and start teaching. The children at the school we are teaching, which is located in the highland alpine area, all seem to have a strong upbringing and home support which has lead to them being very accelerated in their classrooms. In our current classroom there are only a handful of students who need very minor individual attention to stay on top of the curriculum. This is nothing, however, that is enough to slow down or distract the classroom. I am confident that this 5th grade class is grasping education effectively and will be able to do so in their future. Being the first week it is easy for everything to be absolutely overwhelming, exciting, even at times intimidating; therefore it is hard to focus on a single favorite event or time of the week. I will say however one of the favorite experiences this week was how proper and welcoming the students have been. My second favorite experience has been how understanding and resourceful our classroom teacher has been. She naturally has given us all of the tools we need to start exploring our style of teaching in the classroom. It is very easy to see why she is so popular among her students. As some of you may have noticed; lesson plans are much more labor intuitive in the classroom setting. What I mean by this is that they are much more difficult to write, study, review and finally instruct to the classroom. What was really put into perspective is that although the work day appears to be 8 hours of teaching; this is not true. There is no time to build the lesson plan during the day so many teachers are in the office hours longer than a standard 8 hours. Dedicated teachers even work on them at home, on their own time, off the clock. I strive to be as efficient as our classroom teacher in field is. I admire her ability to be so informed of her lesson plan that she rarely has to revert to it. I as an armature teacher if you will have to revert back to it many times during the lesson; this is something that I intend on working on and perfecting as I progress into my teaching career. I look forward to reading all of your experiences throughout the week and hope you continue to have a wonderful time in field! See you all soon!