Today was a great day! It was so bizarre to sit back and watch opening rather than lead it (considering I've been leading it for, oh, 11 weeks now). It's really interesting to see how Aryn does it and compare it to how I do it (did it). I watched her do it for the first week of school and then I started doing it during Week 2 and haven't stopped until now - Week 13! I was only just beginning to understand what the heck I was doing and kind of figured out what worked on my own over the last 3 months. Now I get to watch Aryn do it again (a seasoned expert) and I see the little things she does that I would add if I were to do it again. I feel like it would have been beneficial for her to do it at like Week 7 or 8 and then for me to do it again and add in all of these little things that she does so naturally that I never even thought of! I guess it just comes with time. If I end up in a kindergarten classroom one day, I'll be able to make these changes then and see how it works for me.
I still have Reading and Rotations this week, so I'm not just sitting around doing nothing. I can tell that Aryn is so excited to have some control back, though. She is such a great teacher and she really shines when she's in front of the class. I think she got bored having to sit at her desk all day while I took over! :)
Today the thing I've been thinking about a lot is how important it is for parents to tell teachers when things happen in a child's life outside of school. This stems more from work today than school, but it applies to both. It can be very hard to explain a child's behavior when you're in the dark as to what happened to them yesterday, or over the last week, or even this morning right before school. It also can become extremely easy to explain a child's behavior when you know what's going on and can piece together how something at home can cause them to act out at school. I know that parents may make connections between occurrences and behavior problems (or maybe they don't, who knows) but if they aren't shared with the teacher then we just have to guess! (And sometimes it's impossible to guess what is going wrong; sometimes children will tell you and sometimes they won't or don't know how). There are some parents of the children in my class that call/text Aryn whenever things happen that may affect the child's behavior at school, and Aryn always shares this with me, too. It is so important, because if there is strange behavior happening, we can kind of pinpoint the source and either help the child to work through it or at the very least know what we are dealing with. Sometimes nothing out of the ordinary happens, and that's just fine. But it is so important that teachers are informed. Some parents may not realize this, and some may not want to risk oversharing personal family matters. But it is important...for the teachers, and especially for the children.
I hope that when/if I am a classroom teacher, the parents and families of my students feel comfortable enough to tell me things like this. I cannot stress how important it is, and I want to be the kind of teacher that families want to talk to and work with to help their children work through their problems. I hope to be the kind of teacher that families turn to in times of crisis looking for a little help, a little insight, a little advice. I hope to be the kind of teacher that Aryn already is.
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