Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Photo Essay


Mrs. Dreyfuss is a 2nd grade teacher; her kids adore her and most listen to her every word. She speaks her mind when needed and is able to control her class. Me on the other hand, when I try to control them they don’t listen to me the only experience I have had with teaching kids, was during VBS(vacation bible school). There I had 15 kids and one other girl to help me, we managed pretty well, but it is definitely different when you need to control 25 kids but Mrs. Dreyfuss helped me. Mrs. Dreyfuss graduated from Ohio State University with a major in Special Ed. She went on to get a job in Ohio to teach kids in special Ed for about 15 years, she then moved to San Diego to work at Green Elementary. For 11 years Mrs. Dreyfuss has trained a dog to become a guide dog for disabled people. When I met her at Green she had a yellow lab named Gobi. I was a terrified 2nd grader in her class, and was still trying to figure out who I was as a person. Mrs. Dreyfuss led me on the right path to become the person I am today. I have always admired her as a person and a teacher.

One of my first projects as an intern was to decorate the board in front of the class with the kids current work. The schools superintendant was going to come by the next day so I had to do my best to prepare the bulletin board to reflect what the kids were learning about. Currently they were learning about Martin Luther King Jr. and why he was so famous because it was MLK day the following Monday. A couple of ways they tried to connect and learn about him was to read about 5 different books about him, they also watched “Brain Pop” which is a website that has educational video clips. The one they watched was about Rosa Parks and how she started the bus boycott. They also made their own “I have a dream…” statements, and then they took all of those and wrote them on paper doves, which I put up on their board. While the superintendents were walking through our classroom they commented on the board about how good and professional it looked.

During my internship I learned the inside and outside workings of a 2nd grade classroom. I realized how long one single lesson plan takes to prepare and plan out I also learned how much work it is to keep 2nd graders on task and continuously working for the amount of time they have. When I was back at green I realized how little time the kids have to actually be in the classroom and learn, with music, library, PE, recess and lunch. It takes a lot of learning time out of their day. During the class time though Mrs. Dreyfuss uses their time to the maximum, she has every minute of everyday planned out. Mrs. Dreyfuss is a busy woman always off at some meeting or doing bus duty, she is always moving and never has time for herself. During lunch she tried to do things, like check her email or call parents but she is always up and moving.




The kids at Green have a ton of experiences that most kids don’t usually get, like PE 4 times a week. There is also jump rope for heart and 3 after school programs, kind of like clubs. This picture is of the jump rope club after school, they were giving an assembly about it to recruit kids to join. The woman who leads it is amazing and she had glow sticks on her jump rope, so they turned off the lights and she started jumping in the dark. The kids really enjoyed this and many signed up afterwards. When I went to Green one of the things I remember that I loved was something called heartland, it was a dance club for kids grade 3-5. We got to learn all these cool dance moves and go to mini competitions on the weekends. When I was a little 4th grader I thought It was the coolest thing, it was something to do with my friends after school. There was also something called “mad science” which was a science club for elementary students, we got to mix weird chemicals together, blow things up, and shoot a rocket. That was by far the most popular club of all!

During my last week at internship, the kids had a science “mini lab” that they were doing it was called “the pencil trick.” They had a wire, pencil, 2 counter weights (clothes pins) and a Popsicle stick. First they had to tape the Popsicle stick to the table, and then they had to experiment with the counter weights to try to bend the wire so that it would balance on the end of the Popsicle stick with the pencil tip balancing on the stick. Caleb was the very first one to complete it, he was pretty happy about that, soon everyone else was trying to copy his to figure out what to do. They all got really into it and whenever a kid figured it out they would jump around to get my attention, it was so cute! My 3 weeks at internship were pretty cool; I learned a bunch about being a teacher as a career and how to teach a classroom of 25 kids. I now have a newfound respect for teachers; they need a lot of patients to keep sane in a classroom setting. Overall I enjoyed my internship site and have more respect for my teachers now.

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