AIS Grade 3C Continued

By Friday, I felt I had gotten the hang of the third grade teaching thing and was enjoying myself and the kids. It was fun to come up with things to keep them amused and learning. On Monday, I gave math and language arts assessments and planned for Tuesday. I enjoyed grading the assessments and seeing what they knew and what they still needed to learn.

I found myself taking notes on the kids to give the new teacher:

Jorge* often seems as if he is taking a much longer time than it should to do his class work, but if you look closely, you will see that he has five first drafts of his work hidden in his desk, he wants everything to be neat.

Matthew is very smart, but is easily distracted and often acts up when he gets bored. He needs to be kept busy and stimulated. He likes to help the teacher and loves to cut things out.

Shelly has a very low level of English proficiency, so she often looses interest or fails to follow directions. She needs targeted, directed assistance with extra ESL content. She loves math and is very good at it. She also likes drama.

Anne is extremely smart and well behaved. She wants to please the teacher and will always raise her had to answer questions. She is often finished with her work early and likes to read silently or have other challenging work to do.

Michael is also extremely smart and well behaved. He seeks out independent study at age 9 and always wants a challenge.

Matt is quiet and often appears bored and uninvolved. He needs direct encouragement to become involved, but will step up if encouraged.

And so on...

When I learned Today, Tuesday, that the new teacher had accepted the job and was scheduled to arrive on Saturday, I was immediately a little sad, but then, once it sunk in, I was relieved that the kids would have someone to take over who was capable of really teaching them and handling all of the kids at their different levels. I was also happy to know that next week, I can get back to the business of taking care of general life things like learning Vietnamese, finding out how to get a drivers license, registering to vote and finding a job (or volunteer work at the least) in my field.

I am grateful for this experience and glad that I accepted the temporary position. It was a real learning experience and it turned out to be much less painful than I had initially imagined!

*Not their real names.