Transition From Placement #1 to Placement #2 Reflection
Transitioning from 5th grade all the way down to 1st was a lot harder than I expected it to be. I didn’t expect to get so attached to the students and my cooperating teacher from my first placement. They students really made me feel like I was part of their family and my cooperating teacher involved me in everything she did. I was really able to get a good idea of what the expectations are for a teacher and everything that goes on behind the scenes. My last day in the 5th grade was very upsetting and difficult because I felt like they had become my students and I understood their strengths and weaknesses. It was tough thinking about how I would have to start from scratch getting to know a whole new group of students.
My last day in the 5th grade was a very difficult one. Although I would still be in the same school it was very hard to say goodbye and to explain to the students why I had to leave. They kept asking me why I was going to teacher other students and why I couldn’t just stay with them. Having the students asking me all these questions made it that much harder. From September until the end of October I saw them work so hard and they made so much progress. I was so grateful to be part of this growth. It was also very rewarding seeing my small group grow so tremendously. This was the group that I worked with everyday during reader’s workshop, words their way, and writing. To see them go from not even being able to read or write to reading at levels C’s and D’s, excelling on their spelling tests, and writing a paragraph overwhelmed me with excitement. It was incredibly rewarding being able to work with students like these and watching them grow immensely. I wanted to stay in the 5th grade for the whole year just to see how far they would come. This reason alone made the transition so difficult.
Prior to starting student teaching I thought that I would be a 1st to 3rd grade elementary school teacher. I thought that I would be better with the little children and would enjoy the routines of the younger grades; I was sadly mistaken, however. After just one week in the 1st grade I could really see myself being in the upper grades. I loved the content in the upper grades rather than all the repetitive routines in the 1st grade. I am still trying to keep an open mind in the first grade because I know that I do love this age group. I just don’t know if I would want to teach this age group because it’s so messy all the time because they don’t have the concept of organization yet. Their desks are a nightmare and they can never find anything even though Ms. Reda does a great job organizing their folders by colored dots. I don’t feel that they have the ability yet to be responsible for having a clean and organized desk. I feel like at this age they should have tables and cubbies so everything can stay organized. I am a very organized person so seeing the mess all the time really bothers me. I also think that the repetitiveness is frustrating. Ms. Reda literally has to repeat herself 10 times in order to get them to do what she is asking. Ms. Reda does a great job getting right to the point and repeating herself to make sure they understand. However, as a teacher I feel that this would get old really quick and I would get really tired of repeating myself over and over again. The repetitiveness and lack of organization really is hard to adjust to.
I also had a hard time with the communication transition from 5th down to 1st. I found that in the 5th grade the lines of communication are imperative in helping the students learn. I love being able to have a conversation with them and help them through a problem by communicating. I find that in the 1st grade it is really hard to understand a lot of the students. Several of them have speech impediments or simply have trouble having conversations. Learning how to have a conversation is something that they work on everyday with a partner. This is very difficult because 1st graders can’t always express what’s wrong or what they need. This is a huge difference from the 5th grade and is definitely something that I am going to need to get used to.
Although the transition is very difficult I feel that Ms. Reda is a great teacher to help me with this transition. She is extremely effective in the younger grades and has so much patience. She also has incredible classroom management, which is so important in the younger grades because a lot of them have so much energy and cannot focus for very long. She does a great job keeping their attention and getting them moving around the room during the day. I know that I will get used to the first grade and will end up enjoying it. I just have to keep an open mind and really absorb in everything that Ms. Reda does in the classroom. I am excited to start teaching the students and to really start getting involved in this new classroom.