Theory In Practice Connections

           As I began to draft this blog, I was very confused as to where would I begin? Many of the people in my graduate program know that as of right now I have not been placed in a classroom yet. This has been such a struggle for me in terms of completing assignments, trying out theories and practices, and really connecting fully to the reading. However, despite it all you all have been extremely supportive and encouraging and have caused me to push forward and stay positive until I do get into my own classroom (which I expect to be some time really soon!). I would like to take this time out to thank Mrs. Stanford, a colleague of mine who is a Kindergarten teacher, for allowing me to be a part of her classroom and interact with her students as I patiently await to step into my own classroom. There were so many things I learned about myself, how I interact with children, and what is my presence in the classroom.
         Chip Wood's Yardsticks really aided me a lot in thinking about what to expect with Kindergarteners. My last experience was with Pre-K so I was interested in seeing how different kindergarten would be. I noticed that in terms of instruction, it's more structured in Kindergarten and developmentally speaking, older five-year-olds have a lot of differences to four-year-olds. I noticed that in a Kindergarten classroom, older fives will test their limits with the teacher, which I was able to witness that. In Pre-K, I remembered it being so much more easier for behavior management and Yardsticks provided clarity for me because it talked about how four-year-olds were very easy to redirect. In terms of their interests, I saw some of the same characteristics in the children.
       What was most interesting for me though was the fact that the majority of students in Mrs. Stanford's class were ELL's and had either little to no English speaking skills. I could see how frustrating that was to Mrs. Stanford, especially with limited support from the school. A lot of the students had difficulty trying to express themselves. I pulled one student aside and attempted to have a conversation with him and it seemed as if he had very little understanding of what I was saying. So in an effort to converse with him, I began to draw pictures of a sheet of paper and communicate with him in a way that would probably be better for him to understand. In doing so, I discovered he lived at home with his mom and dad, had a pet dog, and liked to watch TV with his family. I thought that using this technique was really effective as a communication tool because even without using many words, we were able to understand each other.
         All in all, I'm very aware that my experiences this month have been very limited compared to my colleagues, however, I am not going to allow that to discourage me. I am going to try to learn as much as I can from them in the meantime as I await my turn to begin to use some of their practices and my own in my classroom. I am eager and anxious to meet my future students and am preparing myself now to be the confident, caring, nurturing, understanding educator that any student could appreciate! Wish me luck!