First Day of School!

Hey All,
For my student teaching experience I am required to keep a daily journal. In the journal I will write what I am observing, assisting with, and eventually teaching. I will also reflect on the day and write anything else I find important, interesting, or funny. If you are more intersted in reading my travels other activities I'm doing while in Spain I will continue to post those as well. I will title my school day entries as "Journals" and other posts will have a different title.

Here is Journal entry 1:
Monday, November 3, 2008

Today was my first day of school at Sotogrande International. All of us at the house were pretty excited and a little bit anxious to begin. We weren’t quite sure what to expect. When we got to the school, Sue (who is in charge of the Primary Years Program) took Brittany and I to meet our teachers. I am in a building that has classrooms for years 3-6, and Brittany is in a different building for years 1-3.

My classroom is very small compared to the second grade classroom I left at Cleveland, and there are more students! There are 23 students in the class. Right away I met my cooperating teacher, Lisa Clegg. Like many of the students here, she is from England.

I was introduced to the class at the beginning of the day, but I think the students were confused as to what I will be doing in the classroom and how long I will be with them. Tomorrow Ms Lisa, as the students call her, is giving me some time to introduce myself, show some pictures, answer some questions and send a letter home to the students families introducing myself.
We started off the morning with handwriting. Ms. Lisa explained to me that many of the students have “lovely” handwriting, but others are still not forming their letters correctly. For example: they are forming a “b” starting with the loop and moving their pencil upwards. She does not teach a universal handwriting because so many of the students have come from other places/countries and have learned other styles. She simply was enforcing correctly “joining” certain letters when writing.

Handwriting was followed by math, or “maths” as they call it here. =] The students worked on multiplication. In particular they worked on mental mathematical skills. For example: how would you calculate 27 x 6 in your head. She encouraged the students to brainstorm possible ways to solve the problem without solving it on their miniature whiteboards. They came to the conclusion that the easiest way was to multiply 20 x 6 (or t x 6 and add a 0) and then add 7 x 6. The students were allowed to write down 120 on their boards and 42 and then the answer, 162…but that was all the markings that they were allowed to make.

School started at 9:00 and Handwriting and math together lasted until 9:50. The students then went to Spanish class. The students split up into three different groups, beginner, middle, and advanced (fluent students). I was very impressed at how many of the students were fluent. I found out later in the afternoon that many of the students were not only fluent in English and Spanish but some students in four languages…they are 10 years old. This makes me very sad that additional languages are not more heavily stressed in the states.
During Spanish time, Ms. Lisa and I had some time to talk about the “time tables” (schedule – I am learning many different terms for things here already) for the rest of the week. The students will be performing a play on their last “inquiry” or unit on the 19th Century next Thursday so a lot of time this week and next will be used to rehearse and prepare for the performance next week. Lisa showed me some of the scope and sequence and planning format used at the IB school. Right now it just looks like a bunch of charts with information randomly filled into the little boxes. Hopefully, with time, the format will make more sense to me. I remember the first time I tried interpreting the teacher manual at Cleveland, very overwhelming, but at the end it was easy for me to use. The teachers put many of their lesson ideas and objectives on a staff server. I think I will bring my laptop to school with me from now on, Ms. Lisa says I can hook up to the server so that I can see the lesson plans too without having to print them.

After Spanish was Language Arts time. I really enjoyed this time! We talked about similes, metaphors, personification, and metaphors. Then we read a poem about pigeons and the students were asked to find the similes and metaphors in the text. After this activity the students wrote some sentences using alliteration. They were very entertaining, some of the sentences didn’t make sense; they were just a list of words they looked up in the dictionary that started with the same letter. I think one was, “Georgia is a great but gloomy girl who graduated from a galaxy for eating grapes.” – or something like that. It was a fun activity that allowed an opportunity for the students to be creative.
At 11:35 the students break for recess, and the staff gathers in the staff lounge for coffee/doughnuts/fruit or a sandwich. I thought it was awesome! It was nice to say hi to Brittany, Riley, Dawn and Annika, to see how their day was going. Chris Charlton, the school director introduced us at this gathering, which was a nice welcome.

At 11:55 class resumed and we finished our Alliteration activity. The students also were given time to turn in their homework from the vacation. They made little booklets explaining the history of the bicycle. Some of them were very impressive with pictures, drawings, flip tabs with information. I also had a chance to look at some of the students projects from their last “inquiry” on the 19th century. I really like the idea of these projects that are cross curricular, incorporating reading, language arts, writing, science, and social studies. For the project the students had to pick a profession that one might find in the 19th century – Victorian Era. Some students chose maid, tanner, chimney sweeper etc. They had to explain their profession, write a letter as if they were that person, create a timeline, a story with script, and design an outfit that their character might wear. They had to actually make the outfit and wear it during their presentation of their project to a small group. I am very impressed with the quality of work by these young ten year olds. I am excited to work with them.

Lunch is late, 12:40, the school food wasn’t too bad. It will be nice not having to worry about 2-3 meals a day anymore. I had pasta with cheese sauce, and a salad that had peppers and onions in it. I thought their might be chicken strips too, but thought I might be wrong and end up with fish sticks instead. Some day I will be adventurous and try it. =]

After lunch the students had PE where I met Tim’s friend/neighbor in Estapona, Murrey. She is really cool. The students are just starting their unit on football (soccer). We were outside today on the “pitch” but it was a little rainy. On Mondays Ms Lisa and I go down to PE with the students. I told Murray that I was going to bring a change of clothes and shoes so I could play in, I think she was excited to hear that I want to participate. I think it will be a great way to connect with the students, plus, its more fun to play than just to stand and watch!

After PE the students had Spanish again! Apparently on Monday the students have Spanish twice. It was nice because this gave me some more time to talk with Ms. Lisa, explain the folder of information from Gustavus that I brought with me. We talked about Gustavus’ expectations and what I would like to do. I also explained what forms need to be completed by her in order for the experience to be complete.

When the day was over I made my way to the main building to try and find the others for a ride home. This whole transportation to and from school is still being worked out. I think we might actually ride the bus with some of the students in the morning and after school. It’s alright with me as long as we don’t have to walk, it would be a long way, especially if it is raining or if I’m wearing heals ;0).

I feel like even thought it was only the first day, I have learned so much. Even thought the school is British and teaching is in English there are so many things that are different. This experience is going to be amazing. It will open my eyes to a whole different style of education that will benefit me in many ways, no matter the environment in which I teach.

At the end of the day I started feeling more comfortable in the classroom and environment and the students were not longer shy and were willing to have longer conversations with me. Just like Deb had warned, they are all wondering about the upcoming election. They wanted to know who I had voted for. All of them are vey pro Obama. I found it amazing that these young children are so interested and informed about the upcoming debate in a different country. They also wanted to know if I played basketball and how tall I am, haha. Today I had heals on, so I probably seemed like a giant to them!

Some things I am looking forward to:
- Halloween party this Friday with Fireworks (because the students were on vacation during Halloween)
- Learning more about the six inquiries supported by the IB program and how all subjects and academic objectives are met within the student projects. I learned about this at IB training at Gustavus, but it is so much more amazing and interesting to see in an actual school setting.
- The year six theater production next Thursday on the 19th Century.
- Getting to know the students better, I can already tell there are some real characters in the room =]
- Better understanding the way the teachers interpret and prepare their scope and sequence…wow confusing.
- In the future I am hoping to sit in on the Student’s Spanish class. If I do not need to be using this time as prep, I want to brush up on my Spanish. I talked with the teacher and she said this was just fine. I’m excited. I will probably start in the middle class, and then possibly sit in on the advanced, just so I can hear more Spanish.

Some things that surprised me:
- Listening to the students speak perfect English in a British accent and then immediately switch to speaking fluent Spanish, sounding just like a native. Amazing. Also learning about all of the students that speak not two, but three or four languages, fluently.
- The neat handwriting of the students. Not like students in American of this age that I have worked with.
- Classroom management will not be an issue, hardly at all. They are very respectful. Ms. Lisa doesn’t think so, but her standards are much higher than schools in the states. Expectation, “Ms. Lisa, may I please have a pencil, thank you Ms. Lisa”

Something that made me laugh today:
The student and teacher’s British accents – ha, so fun. Especially when working on alliterations.
“Powder pools of sunlight” = “Pouda pooools of sUnlight”
“Small blue busy bodies” = “Small blue bizy buoddies” (say very quickly ;)