My Teacher Identity

This experience has been more than what I had expected it to be. At first I was worried if i was going to like it or if i was going to be good at tutoring. The first few times I visited my school, I just observed the classroom and helped the teacher if she needed it. It took a while for the walk to intervention to start because the reading coach was absent for the first couple of weeks. At first I felt like everything was really unorganized, but once the reading coach came back everything seemed to fall into place. She gave each of us our reading buddies. She said that the the groups usually werent this big, but she had no choice because there wasnt as many tutors as their usually is. I have a group of five students. Each time I tutor the kids I have to do a poem with them first, then an activity of my choice, and sight words. The first two times I tutored the kids, I didnt feel that confident. I felt that they seemed bored with the activities that I was doing with them. The second time I tutored was aweful, I think it may have been because it was the day before Halloween, but the kids were just completly out of control! During the first two weeks I was also having trouble with one of the little boys. I knew that he knew the answers, but for some reason he refused to participate. He constantly put his head in his shirt and wouldnt pay attention at all. I figured he wasnt trying becuase he was so bored with the activities because he already knew all the answers. I tried giving him more challenging questions, but he still didnt want anything to do with the lesson. The next time I tutored I decided to try and make the activities more interesting. Instead of just reading the poem to the kids, I read it and then had them do an activity with it. I brought each child markers and I had them circle all the words that rhymed. The kids were so excited about using markers. At first I wasnt sure if it was a good idea because they're only in kindergarden. I was worried they might just color rather than use the markers for the activity. I told them that if they used the markers the correct way then I would bring markers for them again next week. Then for the activity I brought in a paper snake and each child got one with a card. The card had some kind of object on it. The children had to find other cards that rhymed with their original card. The person with the most rhymes won. The kids really enjoyed this activity! They kept asking to play it again. It was nice knowing how much they enjoyed the activity. They all seemed to learn so much more by doing a hands on activity rather than me just telling them hat rhymes with cat etc. Then for the sight words I was taught to say the words and then show the the card and have the children repeat after me. I decided to try something new. Instead of doing that I passed out the cards evenly to each child. I told them to pretend to be the teacher and when it was their turn they got to tell the students the word and then have them repeat it. All the students loved this game. I feel that this experience has really shaped my teacher identity because Im starting to learn what works and what doesnt. Not only am I learning different methods on how to teach certain subjects, but I'm getting the general experience of interacting with children. I've realized that somedays are going to be better than others,but I've also leanred how to get my students to pay attention. I think the students have come a long way, and so have I. In the begining I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, but I fee a lot more confident now. Also, the little boy who never wanted to participate, is doing much better. This experience has made me realize how much I really enjoy doing this. Im not looking forward to the end of my tutoring experience. I plan on continuing to tutor till the end of Janruary if its possible!

4 The culturally component teacher

I have been tutoring for about eight weeks now. Im a reading buddy and Im working with kindergarden studets. Last week I had the most amazing experience. I got to work with my usualy group of students, but this week one of the students that usually gives me a hard time was excellent. I have a group of five children so the reading coach sugjested doing whole group activites with them rather than some of the more complicated activites. The first few weeks that I was tutoring, I felt that the kids were bored with the whole group activies. I decided to try some of the more complicated activities. I also did a few different things with how i presented the poem and the sight words. The kids were much more interested and I felt they actually learned more. I was able to get the students more involved. The little boy that I had mentiond usually refuses to participate and he puts his shirt over his head the entire time I'm tutoring. The past two weeks he has been participating and he has made such a great improvement. Next week we will be testing the kids again. I think four out of the five children that im tutoring will move on to the next level. I love the group I have, but im so happy that their improving. They have all come such a long way.
As I walked into the school for the first time, I was defenitly surprised that there wasnt many white students in the school. I think the reason that I was so surprised by this was bcause when I attended elementary school, the school consisted of mostly white students. Once I got into middle school, the school was much more diverse than my elementary school. My middle and high school had a variety of different races.There wasnt a specific race that was the majority. I think that Kozol would have been please with the diversity in my middle and high school. I think the main reason i was so shocked that the majority of the students at the school im tutoring at are black or hispanic. I was so shocked becuase I was never exposed to that. Some of the things that also surprised me was how the parents interacted with their children. Not all of the parents are like this, but some of them seem to just be in a rush to drop off their kids. This morning I saw a little boy who just wanted to give his dad a kiss goodbye and the father seemed annoyed by that. I heard him swear under his breath, and instead of kissing his son goodbye, he told him hurry up go to school. I feel that some of the parents dont show an interest in their children school work, which is very different from how I grew up. The teacher in my classroom had told me to keep an eye on one of my students because he had walked out of school five mineuts before it was time to go home. He is only five years old and he walked home from school in Providence. When the school realized that he had left, they called his mother and she didnt seem upset at all. I cant imagine the mother being calm about her five year old walking home. Knowing that i feel really bad for him. I feel that that is why he usually acts out in class because he probably doesnt get enough attention at home. Some of the challenges that i think I might have as a teacher in this classroom would be that Im not fluent in spanish. Iv taken a couple classes in high school, but defenitly not enough to communicate with a spanish speaking student. I would defenitly like to imporve on that sooner or later. As much as I feel that I believe that all students are equal, I made a judgement that I shouldn't have on one of the little boys that I tutor. I thought that the little boy who came off as being a trouble maker wasnt going to know as much as the other students. To my surprise he was ahead of all of the other students. Parts of me wondered why he was even in this group. I think the reason he ended up being in this group was because he probably refused to participate during testing time. After seeing how smart this little boy was, It made me realize that I was being biased. Everyone is going to have a personal biased, but hopefully I will learn from that mistake, and it wont happen as often. This experience has shown me that it doesnt matter what race or culture you come from, as a teacher you need to learned how to put personal bias aside and give each student an equal chance to learn.