First visit - Prompt 1

My first visit to my school brought me back to my own grade school days.

Though not the same school, kids still lined up in single file lines to enter the bathroom in pairs, lockers had names drawn on shapes and construction paper taped to them, two-by-two lines were greatly utilized in getting from place to place, and lined-up students would have to "stop and let someone pass" if a faculty member was in a hurry. All of the school rules, order, and pleasantries of my own experiences as a child had long since been forgotten, and remembering them was an experience on its own. However, I hadn't come to the school to reminisce, I had come to the school for my first experience as a VIPS tutor.

Upon arriving, I met with my supervisor and five other tutors in a brief meeting, where we went over activities, and received our room assignments. I was assigned a third grade class, with a teacher who was highly renowned in the school. The students had a great deal of respect for her. I noticed that I was not assigned a group of students like the rest of the tutors at the meeting, and it was explained to me that the teacher worked with the program in a different way, and was the only teacher allowed to do so, because she went by her own schedules and plans.

Upon walking into the classroom, I was introduced to the class, and met with a big hello from a bunch of intrigued students, probably wondering what a bigger kid was doing in their class. I was seated by the teacher next to a student who had lost most of her hearing, but could read lips well, and I watched the teacher check to see if each student had their homework. If a student didn't have her homework, she explained to them in an assertive (but not aggressive) scolding tone, telling them that they were supposed to have their homework today, and asking the student if his or her parents knew that their homework was not done. The teacher immediately established power in the classroom, and did not give the students an option of disobeying her. Either your homework was done, or it was not. If it was not, and your parents knew about this, you would be in big trouble, not to mention your homework grade would not be doing so good.

After helping the child with hearing loss take some notes, we sent the students off to the gym, and I was sent on my way back to RIC (for my secondary ed meeting) after organizing some report cards for the teacher.

It seemed to me that the school greatly valued friendships. Through my experiences in traveling with my supervisor, all of the faculty were very friendly and polite with each other. Also, the school valued diversity. Walking to the bathroom, I had to make my way through a herd of children, returning back to class from the black history month assembly. I had overheard from one of the faculty members stopping to talk to my supervisor that the assembly had taken over two months to prepare for, and they believed it to positively affect the children. The classroom I had specifically worked in greatly valued not just learning, but using visuals to help understand things more clearly. Visuals were posted everywhere in the classroom, from pictures to charts to posters and many other things.

I greatly enjoyed working with this class, and I look forward to my next visit (tomorrow!)

'Til next time
Russ