This week in Kindergarten was extremely eye opening! I started each day by asking for God to grant me wisdom and help take away my fear and nervousness because I knew that it was not of Him. Each day I found myself growing more confident in my abilities. I am blessed to have an extremely talented cooperating teacher and a great class of students.
One issue that I encountered this week was my class of students being told that I was not a teacher. My cooperating teacher wanted to explain the appearance of the camera in the classroom, so she explained to the students that I was a student learning to be a teacher. I'd planned to explain to the students that the camera was there to take pictures of how we learn. I worried that this would lessen my influence and authority in the classroom. Since learning that I am a student, the children ask, multiple times a day, "Are you a teacher yet?" I realized that the beauty of kindergarten is that they respond more openly to how you make them feel, than the words that you say. They can not understand why I am not a teacher, because I feel like their teacher.
I am enjoying my experience in the classroom. The students are bubbling with ideas that they want to share. I have been trying different techniques to encourage students to share and also know when it is appropriate to listen. We spent the entire week working on appropriate speaking and listening rules during literacy. I also, as a teacher, know that their attention span can only be maintained for so long, before we need to move into activities that are interactive. So this week I am working on engaging the students, limiting the amount of time that I am talking, and encouraging more student involvement.
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