My first day...

I intended to write this post on my first day of placement, but I decided that I would gather more information about my placement school before I delved into my initial experience. Day one of my placement was not what I was expecting it to be for a couple of reasons, but my primary experience was going to the wrong school. Now I know what you might be thinking: 'how on earth did you go to the wrong school when you obviously received the name of the school weeks in advance?' Well the answer is simply really: my school is a middle school that just so happens to sit right next to another school of the same name only it is in fact an elementary school. I was wandering the halls of this building looking for my mentor teacher's classroom only to be perplexed when I found that the hallway she designated in emails did not exist. I was told 14, when this schools hallway ended at 9, so naturally I was very confused. When I was asked by a teacher if I needed help locating her room they were stumped by my mentor teacher's name (since they would obviously never communicate with the middle school faculty outside of building planning I would not expect them to know every teacher's name by heart so I understood completely). When we all figured out that I was supposed to be on the middle school side I almost immediately located my placement classroom. Once I found my placement classroom this is when I started to realize that even though my first day of placement was supposed to be the 22^nd the school did not actually start allowing students into the building for class until the 24^th! So I spent my entire allotted placement time assisting my mentor with setting up the classroom and making homeroom binders for incoming students. 

Because I spent my first day without any of the students I decided to hold off on reporting my initial experience and substitute it with one that had actual student involvement. My first live field experience was incredible to say the least. In previous years I always felt like an outsider in the classroom since I was either dropped in on several classes half way through the year or I would be placed in a classroom that had already been established and running smoothly for a month. I could never really bond with the students due to the fact that they looked at me as a stranger in the classroom. I had to take extra steps in order to aid students in these types of classroom situations as well, and every time I would record a micro lesson I came out of the experience feeling a little let down. I remember feeling like these lessons were staged and students were not actually committing to my lessons simply because they felt that the lessons would not pertain to their actual teacher's curriculum (despite my best efforts to coordinate my mini lessons with the actual curriculum so that they would align correctly with either of my previous mentor teacher's flow of events). With my current placement the whole structure of the relationship between myself, my mentor teacher, and our students feels completely genuine and not at all how it was in previous classrooms. I think this atmosphere has to do with two different factors: 1. I was in the classroom day one and this allowed students to get to know me at the very beginning of my time there. 2. I am in the same classroom every day of the school week. This one is huge in my opinion since in previous years I was only in the classroom once a week.

My goal this semester was to engage with students on a much deeper level than  had previously been able to, but since the restrictions of my previous placements have been changed for the better I feel like this goal should be even more manageable than anticipated! Overall this type of model for field experience has been overwhelmingly positive and I have already seen a more positive first contact with students. Definitely looking forward to this year with my mentor teacher and our students.