Never Judge A Book By It's Skin Color

Today I was able to run the "morning meeting" portion of the day. I really feel as though it went really well. This was the first time I was able to have control of the class without the mentor teacher being in the room. I still feel as though I'm learning my style when it comes to how I would "control" the classroom on my own. I've always wanted to be more of a facilitator of learning more than a dictator that controls without much input from the students. This was a very difficult task for this portion of the day, but I do feel as though I was able to keep the level of impulsiveness for each student low.

I would like to dedicate this next portion of this blog to a specific young man in my class. For the sake of this blog we will call him "Andre". Andre is a very bright Hispanic you man. I often will keep an eye on him during instruction. He usually doesn't seem to be paying attention but he does know the answers when asked a question. He also is a kid who rarely gets into trouble when in class. He is very interested in learning about me as a teacher. I've realized certain things today that I honestly should have remembered from my own childhood.

They say that you should never judge a book by it's cover. We as teachers are asked to do this with so much against the situation. We look at test scores are supposed to plan our early units primarily on what children may have exceeded in or fallen short with in their previous years in the classroom. My mentor teacher told me something today that was very enlightening. He stated that many teachers attempt to "know" their class and how it will go within the first few weeks of school. He suggested that I take longer (4 or 5 weeks) to complete this task. This makes perfect sense. We can't judge these young people by their immediate "covers", especially since some children will have their guards up for the first few weeks of school.

I look forward to learning much more about "Andre" during the rest of my time student teaching. Judging how I felt this child would act in the classroom was not what I should have done in the classroom and I'm glad I was completely wrong about the trouble I thought I might have from him. It is a long 13 weeks, but I have a feel that he, along with the rest of my students, will do great during this time.