All our schools, all our children, all our world.

After teaching in a Title 1 school this past semester, I can vouch for just how powerful economics are in education outcomes. I have seen how disadvantaged kids are being excessively punished by government policy.

Reports from a Stanford University show that "with a rising income achievement gap, a family's economic situation is a bigger determinative force in a child's academic performance than any other major demographic factor." 

Schools in destitute areas therefore require more resources than wealthy schools, but many high poverty schools receive less than their fair share of state and local funding, leaving less funding to recruit teachers, upgrade classrooms, reduce class sizes, and overall sustain good educational practices. (Obvious right?)

So what is the taxing problem facing American schools today? Put it all together and what do you get?

As David Sirota so poetically puts, "It's poverty and punitive funding formulas, duh."

It's too easy to just point fingers at teachers and/ or schools. The hard thing is to take a deep hard look at your own society, one that you are privileged by and examine the inequalities it creates. Doing this asks us to change resource-hoarding attitudes and encourage us to care about all our schools, all our children, all our world. 

The Final Presentation

I walk with nervous anticipation over to the building where I have spent so many weeks, days, and hours learning, training, and studying the art of pedagogy.

The air is a thick smog (thank you Salt Lake City inversion!) with hints of tiny snowflakes beginning to fall. As I continue to walk, the snow begins to fully show it's presence and thick white flurries begin to kiss my cheek as I get closer to Malouf.

I know this is it. The end, yet also the beginning. 

I've been preparing for this presentation for years, collecting data, saving documents and pictures, organizing papers and projects, all which can defend my knowledge as an educator. 

When I enter the conference room, all my nerves are set aside and a warm boost of confidence fills my core.

                                       I'm ready for this.

After listening to 3 other presentations from my peers, it's finally my turn. I stand in front of three beautiful, wise, and gifted professors and begin to share my journey with them. The minutes pass by and I don't even notice... I could talk about this all day.

And yet suddenly, I'm done. I'M DONE! Am I really done?? YES!.... I am done.

A mixture of emotions stir inside me as I head back home. Happiness? Definitely. Relief? Absolutely. But there is also an unsettling feeling, a little sadness that this chapter of my life has come to a close. 

Words cannot express how thankful I am for my teachers in the Westminster Education program. 

Something has ended, yet an incredible adventure awaits me. 

"I remembered your voice"

Today I visited Escalante. It was my first time being back since the last day of my student teaching experience. 


After being gone only a week, it felt like a lifetime. Walking into the room the students yell "Ms. H!!!!!!" and immediately form a giant pile of hugs around my torso. 


It was so good to be back. I visited for awhile, helping them with their center work, continuing to be amazed by how much they have grown since the beginning.


Before I leave little *Joseph approaches me. 


"Ms. H...I remembered your voice. When I was in the library reading a book, I remembered your voice. I could hear it in my head."


Joseph's comment was so endearing. It made me realize what a powerful profession teaching is. Everyday, I am the voice my students hear, and when I am gone, I hope they will continue to hear it; encouraging them to grow and change the world for the better. 

Thank you to my 1st Graders

Thank you:

For being brave

For making me laugh

For inspiring me

For showing me how to marvel at the earth

For allowing me to explore my teaching skills

For challenging me to be better

For driving me crazy  :)

For giving me something to live for

For opening up my eyes again to the beauty of innocence

For showering me with gifts and praise

For being fearlessy YOU

For growing and making a better world.

I will never forget you.

For Good

I've heard it said

That people come into our lives for a reason

Bringing something we must learn

And we are led

To those who help us most to grow

If we let them

And we help them in return...

I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you

I have been changed for good.

The Last Day

The time is 7:00 a.m. I rise out of bed knowing that this is my last day.


I arrive at the school and go about my day with the classes normal routines. Towards the end of the day I call students to the carpet and tell them to close their eyes. When I see that their eyes are tightly shut I bring out my presents for them. 


The first gift is a puppet. The children squeal with excitement as I show them how it moves and comes to life with the guidance of my hand. I explain to them that they get to name this puppet and use it during free-time. I also let them know that this puppet can be a reminder of all the fun times we had together.


The kids name it rockstar :)


The second gift I give them is a book I worked on throughout my 14 weeks with them. The book was a part of my "funds of knowledge" project in which I gathered unique details about each student, along with a poem I wrote for them, and a tree with all of our fingerprints as the leaves. 

Andrew hanging out with the new class buddy "Rockstar" the puppet.

The inside cover of the book with the poem I wrote for them  (right side)

The class tree with our fingerprints as the leaves

On each page I had pictures of the students with their unique qualities and funds of knowledge accompanied with their hand-print.

At the end I included pictures of our home countries.

As we get ready for the end of the day, students go around the room and share their favorite memories spent with me. With each comment, I have to fight back the tears and be brave. Finally, it is little *Joseph's turn (my chatty little scientist). He stands up out of his seat and begins his speech. 


"Ms. H., I liked when we built boats together and you taught us about the water cycle. We will really miss you and we just, we just really love you." 


With that I cannot hold back the tears any longer. "I love all of you too so much!" I say and wipe my wet cheeks. 


I hug each of them as they walk out the door, out into the world as the amazing 1st graders that I was so blessed to teach. 

Listen to the wind...and always follow your heart.

The other day students came into class and started asking me, “Ms. H! What’s your favorite dessert?” “Ms. H! What’s your favorite book?” “Ms. H! What’s your favorite color?”

I didn’t really think anything of it. Then, little Jasmin approaches. “Ms. H. I’m not supposed to tell our secret …..but…. we are throwing a surprise party for you!”

I bust out laughing.

“Jasmin!!! You weren’t supposed to tell!”

On Friday, I walk into the classroom and see the presents on the table.

I still act surprised. “These are for me?!?”  “I’m so surprised!”

I open my presents and the little ones sit around my feet. They cannot contain their excitement.

As I open each gift, I am blown away. They are beautiful. I read the letters they wrote me and tears form in my eyes. “Those are happy tears!” Aaron exclaims! “Yes Aaron, these are happy tears.” I say, “I love all of my gifts so much!”

Here’s a look at the present they made for me...

The book they made for me

There were letters and pictures inside

The cute apron they decorated with puff paint

The cloth bag they signed their names on

and decorated turtles on the back

The book Tille bought for me

The inside of the book that they signed

A picture of the whole class with the presents they made :)

Last Collaboration

Today, I had my final collaboration meeting with the 1^st grade teachers. When I walked into the room, they had a card, donuts, and cake bites sitting on the table.

I’m so lucky to have had the chance to work with these amazing teachers. I will never forget my experience with them and how incredible each of them are.

One Drop

For our final water unit project, students and I made individual raindrops. We decorated them, then wrote pledges on the back to show how we will do our part in conserving water. I think this project was the perfect was to summarize what we have learned about water and symbolize how every drop counts...

Room 143: Who We Are

Europe, The Americas, Mexico

The places from our past.

Bosnian, English, Spanish

The languages we speak.

Art, Science, Movement

Some of our many passions

Friendships, family, and respect

The foundations of our class.

We are:

An interweaving of cultures, interests, and skills

 We all:

Come together to learn, to live, to grow

My Top 10 ELL Strategies:

1.) Predictable Routines: Helps ease confusion. Makes them feel comfortable, confident, and reassured.

2.) Visual Scaffolding: Within my teaching I accompany everything with images (whether it be on the computer, with books, etc.) Visual images Water word wall and activity sheets accompanied with visual images and pictures.

3.) Realia: I use realia on a daily basis. It is the building blocks of our classroom (whether it be cooking utensils, stop signs, garden tools, vegetables, etc.). It is particularly beneficial to use the realia during experiments and activities to help aid understanding.

4.) Interactive Read Aloud (Reading Designed to Support Understanding): Books- using expressive tone, gestures, and different voices. Using graphic organizer with the stories to help with comprehension and accompanied with think, pair, share to help communicate ideas.

5.) Preview/Review: Plan and gather materials, introduce key vocabulary, teach the lesson, review the vocabulary and concepts, provide additional practice (during centers), assess student progress and understanding.

6.) Language Focused Lessons: Model word, have students act out the word, practice mastery.

7.) Grouping for support: Fluent English speakers with developing English speakers.

8.) Total Physical Response: Using body movements to act out words.

9.) Leveled Questions: Differentiating questions to fit English proficiency.

10.) Shared Reading: To help with fluency, one-to-one matching, and comprehension of text.

The Story of Me

Today in ELD students created their “Story of Me”. This was a great learning tool for self-expression, writing, and editing. Not to mention they turned out incredibly adorable.  :)

Bubbles

Today, girls from the Science School came into our classroom and helped with our bubble experiment.

I loved the example that these young women shared. It’s great to have older students come into a classroom and set an example of inquiry based science learning.

The lesson was a success and all the kiddos were hooked.  

Here’s a look at some of our bubble fun!

Seasons change...

Today, I pulled into my normal parking space. As I was about to step out of my car, I noticed that the sunflowers, which once fully bloomed, were now wilted.

Seasons change. Time moves on, and soon…so will I.

Today was my first realization that my time here at Escalante is almost up….and I don’t want it to end.

Differentiation

Differentiation is a tricky thing. What I have noticed is that children are very sensitive to differences in work. They notice when someone is doing something else. The differentiation needs to happen, the changes need to be made, but they can’t be overly obvious.

At the beginning, differentation was something that was keeping me up at night. I couldn’t quite figure out the most effective way to match the wide range of student learning abilities. At first, I made it too complex, typing up separate lesson plans for each student to make sure I was meeting all of their needs. But that didn’t last long because it was too time consuming. And I think that’s where the issue lies with differentiating. Many teachers do not differentiate, because they don’t know how to do it fast and effectively. Differentiating can be done, it just requires a little extra thought, not hours of additional work. Here’s a look at some easy differentiating that I have been doing in centers. 

Teaching to the Test

Today, the 1^st grade team had our collaboration with our schools math specialist and principal. We talked about goals in making A.Y.P this year and structuring tier 3 intervention groups for math. As we reviewed our data, we naturally got on the subject of No Child Left Behind.

Doing my student teaching in a school that didn’t make A.Y.P has really opened my eyes to the issues of standardized testing and No Child Left Behind. Teaching to the test is both overwhelming and immoral. Our principal brought up the question “Are we doing a disservice to students by teaching to the test?”

As she asks this question, out of the corner of my eye I see the students running on the playground, kicking a soccer ball, and laughing. They are children, wanting to live and learn. But today as an educator, I feel this pressure to teach to a test, to belittle their experience, and show them that all their education is worth nothing more than a test score.

This isn’t the way it should be…

A good day.

Today, Janet came in and observed our sink/float lesson with our boats. The lesson went very well and the students did a phenomenal job making revisions to their boats and communicating what worked and what didn’t.

Despite having such a good lesson, I was still feeling sad over the fact that Christian moved. But soon, that sadness was transformed into hope.

After my lesson, I got a phone call from the office saying I had something I needed to pick up. When I walked into the office, there was a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to the school from my boyfriend. A card on the flowers read, “One has moved on, but these other students still need you.”  Reading this made me realize that my time with Christian was something I will always cherish, but now I have to look forward and focus on my other 21 incredible students.

Today was a good day.

"One has moved on, but these other students still need you"