Field Work: Week One

The first day of field work was great! I am in a sixth grade class. A lot of it was just walking around the class which honestly was a little boring. I helped a few kids who had missed some questions on a worksheet about Ephesus, a city in the ancient Roman empire. The worksheet had a passage about all the great ruins in Ephesus and how it is the best place for tourists to visit, and then it had some comprehension questions. I read over it with each student who needed help individually and helped them understand the right answers. One boy, let's call him C, is apparently the misbehaving disruptive kid in the class. I like him. His missed about all the questions on the worksheet. When I sat down next to him to talk about it, he tried to avoid it by pretending that his cursive assignment was more important. After a bit, I got him to pay attention and I read the passage to him while he followed along. He really did get it and was able to answer the questions fine after we read it together. I think he just picked random answers originally without even reading the passage. He just needed some motivation. I know he's a good, smart kid. Earlier in the day when the class was supposed to begin working on a math assignment, C had decided to draw in his notebook instead. I saw him drawing a stick figure shooting something in the sky. I know how fun it is to do drawings like that. I walked over to his desk and said, "that's a cool drawing, but you need to get started on the assignment." I know he liked that I said I like his drawing. As I saw him doing his math, he know what he was doing and was good at it.

One thing the teacher did that I like was she had the kids sit on the floor in the middle of the room while she taught math. While they were on the floor sitting close to each other, she would have the students talk to the people next to them and discuss answers to the problems. It was a lot less boring for the kids than having them sit at their desks.

Toward the end of my time at the school, I had to sit on a stool in the front of the class, introduce myself, and answer questions from the students. I mentioned that I play Minecraft (a computer game). I did this on purpose because I know it's popular and I wanted the kids to know I have something in common with them. Lots of the kids got excited when I mentioned Minecraft, and they started asking me questions about the game and about other video games. They thought it was awesome.

On Thursday, the teacher gave a lesson on Mesopotamia, specifically cuneiform and seals (clay cylinders with writing on them used to make impressions in soft clay). She had each student write his/her name in cuneiform on cylinders they made out of clay. They had a lot of fun doing the activity.

On Friday the kids had a math test, but before they took it they played a review game. The students were in groups of 4 or 5 and each group had a white board. The teacher put questions on the board, and each group would put their answers on their white board. Each group that got it right would get a point, and then the teacher would pick a name at random, and if that person could explain how he/she got the answer, his/her group would get an extra point. During the test, I got to read the questions out loud to a student who needed that accommodation. After the students finished the test, they turned it in and immediately got a pre-test for the next section so the teacher could know where the students were at before she began teaching.

Later that day, the students also had a spelling test.  There were two tests. Jamie gave the normal test and then I gave the advanced one. I had to say the word and then use it in a sentence. There were words like thermonuclear, wharves, and embargo which are very hard to put in a sentence, but it was a good experience.