Placement+Reflection

Placement Reflection: Week One JOURNAL RESPONSES Your job this week was to think. How did you think? What made you think? Did you always think? Did you notice others around you (no names need to be mentioned) not thinking? Did you notice others around you really thinking? Fear - What fear did you overcome this week? How did you overcome the fear? Maybe you didn't overcome a fear this week.... What was that fear?

My placement is in a grade 2/3 class within a Roman Catholic elementary school. This week I came into the class room and felt out of place for the first 2 days, I was nervous that my general behaviour and look was wrong, that maybe the kids wouldn’t like me, or I would always kind of be an outsider looking in on the class.

I saw that there were certain kids who had trouble sitting still so they were given spinning chairs or rocking chairs. Most of the kids were in groups of four, except for 3 because they didn’t work well in groups and preferred to be independent.

TUESDAY- On my first day I met all of the staff and went over safety codes and regulations, we went over the needs of certain kids. When brought into the class I watched the teachers and watched how they handled the kids, what behaviour was acceptable and what wasn’t. I also saw how they would handle situations when the kids threw tantrums, became clingy and when they were aggressive.

I was told that I could pick a book and read to them, so I picked a book called freckle face and the dodge ball bully; it was kind of hard for me because I didn’t want to mess up reading in front of them. I wanted to earn their trust and respect so I thought how can I get 6 and 7 year olds to trust me? I had to relate but in control.

WEDNESDAY- On Wednesday we were learning about the 4 food groups, at the end of two movies the kids were told to draw one food from each group, I was walking around keeping an eye on the kids and answering questions when a table of four boys asked me what they could draw, so I took an orange marker and drew a bread loaf cliff, with evil potatoes in masks chasing carrots into a bacon pit, but there was a cheese in a cape rescuing them. So I had gotten the assignment done and became a few kids favorites at recess I was told that I was keeping 2 girls in to finish our success quilt, which was where we had to staple there drawings on a bulletin board.

THURSDAY- Thursday I found myself fitting in well, the kids all knew me and seemed to like me, at recess I started a game of tag with 3 girls ad a boy and slowly tons of kids joined and it got to the point where no one knew who was it and everyone was tagging each other, one boy in my class was throwing rocks and had just the day before earned back his recess's because he was throwing rocks, so I wasn't really sure what to do, but decided to tell the teacher of my class and he had his recess's re-taken away.

FRIDAY- There was one girl who has low functioning Down syndrome; I got to work with her alone on Friday because her mentor was on a break. At first I was really nervous because I don’t really know what down syndrome is and I wasn’t sure how to handle it, but it was actually and amazing experience. She was told to work on drawing alphabet letters on an Ipad she had been given. When she got it right she would look at me for approval and I would smile and raise my hand for a high five and it was moving to see how happy a smile made her.

Over the week I thought about what the best choices would be, how would they impact the kids, and what would have the best out come.