When asked what I wanted to be, I always said I wanted to be a teacher. This has been a dream of mine since I was in elementary school. As the years went by I would always wonder what school was like from my teacher’s point of view. Soon I discovered a program called Teacher Academy. This program granted me the opportunity to experience school from the teacher’s point of view. At first I thought I would be mentally capable of teaching any age level. I quickly found out I was wrong.
It was the first day of my second placement. I was in a second grade classroom in the elementary school. I noticed right away that this particular group of students were going to be difficult to handle. Later on my teacher would tell me this was the hardest group she ever worked with. In this class I noticed that second grade students need a lot of attention. They would get up from their seats to talk to their teacher, even after she would ask them to sit back down. Their attention span was that of a squirrel. Directions would be missed because five kids would be watching their friend stab an eraser to death. When they asked questions, they were basically asking for the directions to be repeated. No one would listen to their peers’ questions either, resulting in the same question being asked over a dozen times. Even after the directions were repeated, the same questions would be asked. Projects and assignments took longer than needed because of this. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Even though I had a culture shock walking in, I continued to work in this placement. Then the fatal day came when my host teacher was gone and the class had a substitute. In her substitute plans she left her replacement instructions that during my hour there, I would be teaching. On this particular day, they played ‘Martin Luther King Jr. Day Bingo.’ To my surprise, the class was worse than usual. I was ignored by half the class, the other would continually asked what the word was or make a side comment about the word. Kids would ask for more chips or complain that another student stole their chips. The substitute teacher tried to help, but the students would not listen to her either. Soon another second grade teacher came to control the class, giving them all a sense of guilt and embarrassment for making so much noise and not listening to the current adults in the room. After this day, I knew for certain that I did not have what it took to teach at an elementary school level. Today I am in a middle school placement and I have come to the conclusion that I will teach middle school students in the future. Though they still have that sense of innocence and the need for attention, by this point in their careers they have learned the proper behavior needed in the classroom and more teaching could be done. I find this work environment to be more productive, both to them and their teacher, as well as less stressful. From time to time behavior issues need to be addressed, but only to a certain group of students. They will follow directions, for the most part, and ask more reasonable questions or address more important problems. The other day I was working in my placement with the students on their Chrome Books. Students were having issues logging in, and these problems were more severe, such as the computer not registering their email or the computer shutting down mysteriously. A lot of the students were able to help each other while my host teacher and I helped other individuals. Elementary students may be cute and innocent, but it takes a special kind of person to teach them the basic needs and proper behavior needed for middle school and high school. Thanks to Teacher Academy, I learned that I am not that kind of person. I know I cannot be at twenty-three places at once, and thankfully middle school students know that. Thanks to a particular second grade class, I learned that I am more cut out for middle school rather than elementary school. I applaud those who can teach at the elementary school level, because if it were not for them the world would be in chaos.
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