Week 1 School

A lot of first happened this week, I started this journey as an assistant in a blended classroom of fourth and fifth graders. 10 and 11 year old, of all shapes and sizes, 26 in all, 14 fourth graders and 12 fifth graders. This being a parochial school there is a emphasis on the scriptures with prayer and Thursday our class church day. The lead teacher is in her second year at the school and will be credentialed in November. The responsibility of a teacher is tremendous. Twenty-six little minds, from all different environments to be worked into a coherent group of thinkers and learners, not a easy task. That why good teachers are the best investment any school can make. A hero educator of mine once said, “if you love children teaching is fun everyday”. This is also the first year of the Principal who taught 5th grade for 5 years at this school and is also an alumni. I’m trying to get the kids to understand learning is a two way street, and as a life long learner, you never stop learning. I’m still learning from them and teaching them. It will take awhile but that’s what early weeks of school are for. I also learned this week you must be careful what you say. A 4th grader came to me at lunch and said he dropped his sandwich on the ground what should he do, I said “throw it away”. He looked at me with his little chubby self and watering eyes and said, “the whole thing”. I saw dirt was on one side and told him he could tear that part off and eat the rest if he liked. The Principal asked me about it the next day, it seem he went home and told his mom we made him eat a sandwich off the ground. For me, a lesson learned, be careful what you suggest and how you say it. On my first day I gave the children a big word to learn, ACCOMPLISH. These early weeks we will get more into that word. At a morning assembly the Principal used the word BUILD, which worked well with the Priest sermon on FAITH and TRUST. I look will be looking for ways to help these young minds grow around these words. There are some real challenges in this classroom but, none that don’t appear, with work, can’t be improved upon. We all are on the learning curve right, now trying to figure out how we all going to work together for the betterment and education of the children and community. The teacher right now is working a little to hard and not working the students hard enough. Idle time allows young minds to wander, have to keep them engaged and changing every 20 to thirty minutes so boredom doesn’t make them sleepy. The challenge has started, I will need to work a little harder to ACCOMPLISH bigger gains.