HCSD Preschool
This week while mentoring at the preschool, there was a day when I was helping the preschoolers get their stuff ready to go home, but one student did not want to cooperate. He did not want to put his coat on or zip his backpack, and instead he took another student’s hat and tried to put it on me. In doing so, he basically just held the hat against my face, so that I could not see anything. He would not listen when I told him to stop or give the hat back. At the preschool, they talk a lot about the different "zones" you could be in, and at that point this child was definitely in the red zone. In that moment I was unsure of how to handle the situation. I decided to sit him in my lap and give him a big bear hug, holding his arms down, until the classroom teacher came to help calm him down. I am not sure how she got him to cooperate and get ready to leave, as after that happened I went to help other students that needed their coats zipped or gloves put on. If this or something similar were to happen again, I would probably handle it the same way, and allow a teacher who is better equipped to deal with the situation take care of that student, until I learn how to do so myself. Calming down a student who is uncooperative or misbehaving is one of the things I want to learn how to do before my mentoring for this semester is over. Since there are only a few weeks left, I need to start asking more questions when a situation like this occurs. So far, I have mostly been going with the flow of whatever happens in the classroom, but I need to be more purposeful when mentoring in order to learn what I want to learn and gain from this experience. At this point, I have learned that there is a lot of cutting, gluing, and other forms of crafting on the teacher’s end that goes on in preparation for the activities each day. Before this, I thought that it would mostly be the students doing the arts and crafts, but there is just as much designing and creating for the teachers to do as there is for the students. I would not mind that if I were to follow this path, but it is just something new I have learned while mentoring that I did not know before.
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One of the things I wanted to learn about while mentoring is how different specialists, such as psychologists, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech/language therapists, have an impact on a child’s learning and development. I have chosen the two that seem the most interesting to me, occupational therapy and speech/language therapy, and talked to my mentors about scheduling a day to shadow them instead of being in the regular classroom. I have learned that this experience is totally dependent on me, and that it is up to me to ask questions to get the most out of this opportunity. This is sometimes challenging for me, as I am typically a more reserved person, and I don’t speak up when I should. Outside of my mentor site, we have been talking about Twitter over the past couple of weeks in our mentorship class. The HCSD Preschool twitter page (@HCSDPreschool) is geared towards parents, since it is unlikely that students at the ages of three and four have their own account. They mostly tweet reminders for PTO events, book fairs, spirit nights, and other in-school activities. The HCSD Preschool Twitter account is followed mostly by their staff and parents of the school. The account follows their teachers as well as local education-related organizations, such as the Hilliard Education Association and the Hilliard Education Foundation. It also follows other schools in the district, including Alton Darby Elementary School, and other local organizations, like the Hilliard Food Pantry. For me, it is important to follow my mentor and my mentor site on Twitter so that I can learn what else may be involved with a career in this field that I may not see from only being in two classrooms. It is also important to learn what kinds of news is important to my mentor site, as that will also help to give me an accurate perception of this career field. I mentored two more days this week, and I am still adjusting to the classrooms. They are very different from the traditional high school classrooms that I have grown used to; there are fewer students and more adults, and there are a lot of things going on at once. While the main teacher is working with the majority of the class on a new letter of the alphabet or reading a story, sometimes there are other students who have trouble focusing or need other individual attention. Typically in these situations, an assistant will pull that student out of the main circle and sit with them and help them to focus their attention back towards the activity at hand. It gets a little crazy when there are multiple students who require individual attention, and that is how there ends up being so many different things happening in the room all at once. All of the teachers and assistants are amazing, though, and I want to learn more about the different techniques they use to calm those students when a situation like that arises. The teachers I am with are also super helpful in explaining what different activities are for and answering any questions I may have. For example, there was a day when one of the classrooms had a table set up with various counting activities, and I learned about the different activities that you can do with students all with the same materials, depending on their level of understanding the numbers. So far, mentoring in the preschool has been a blast, and I love watching the students as they are learning and processing new information. My favorite part has been watching their faces light up when something clicks in their mind and they begin to understand things better. I am looking forward to watching the students grow even more over the next few weeks! This week was my first time mentoring, and although I only mentored two days, it already has been so much fun. Before I officially started, though, I met with the two teachers that will be my mentors on Monday in their classrooms. I learned some of the ground rules for their classes, and it was a nice practice run for driving there and making sure I know where I am going. My first days at the Hilliard Preschool were a little chaotic, because although I am older than the students there, I do not really know how their classes operate. Some of them would ask me questions that I did not know the answer to, but they probably do not realize that I am new and they actually know more about their class than I do. Outside of my mentor site, we have been discussing social media in our mentorship class. Most schools/teachers use social media to share what their class is doing with the parents of their students or with other teachers. I think social media is a useful tool for businesses/professionals to share what their goals are and how they are working to meet them. I also think that social media is a great way to share personal events and achievements with friends and family, as well as being a way for individuals to find other professionals and make connections with others in their field. If I had the ability to get rid of social media, I would not. It allows companies and individuals alike to connect with others on a professional or personal level, and is an amazing resource so long as it is used properly. |
AuthorA high school senior exploring the field of early childhood education. Archives
December 2018
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