Working with families

When I walked into my new classroom, I was so excited. I could not wait to meet the students. I was also a little nervous. There were 31 kids about to walk into a classroom and even though I knew they were all going to be there they had no idea I was. I wonder what they would think when they found out they had a student teacher. The first thing I notice about the students is how many of them there were. 31 kids is a lot of kids to put in one room. While setting up the room is seemed so big and spacious. The carpet area had a nice big rug and a cozy couch in it. As soon as all the students stepped in the room, space was quickly taken up. The big rug no longer looks so big with 31 bodies all scrunched sitting on it. Some of the students were excited that the other 4^th grade classroom was right next door. In the school there is also a computer lab of 32 brand new MAC computers for student use. After seeing these I was thrilled to see that the students would be able to use technology in their learning. Since I take the expressway to get to school each day, and our school is very close to the expressway, I have not seen a lot of the surrounding community. There are houses right across the street from the school, where you could often find people sitting on their decks when the weather was nice. The high school is also located right behind Hoover. Some days the football team is practicing when we get out of school. I also noticed while driving to school that the Hazel Park raceway is close to our school. This is a major landmark in Hazel Park. Fundraisers were held at the raceway this summer to help fund our trip to Mackinaw Island. The community was what I expected it to be like. The houses are moderate family houses with lots of people around. The community and school are different from some of my experiences while they are also similar to other experiences I have had. Many of the my students are served breakfast before school. When I was placed in Lansing schools, all students got to eat breakfast while they did their bell work in the morning. One thing that I noticed is kids are not bussed home after school. In many other schools that I have worked with such as the Troy Schools, the majority of the students took the bus to and from school. I really want to make sure that I relate to the students and understand how their lives are. I don’t live in their community; know where they live or what they do after school. I am sure what they do afterschool is much different than what I did when I was in 4^th grade. I have already learned a lot from talking with them which helps me to understand their experiences.