Yesterday I went to Tropical
Elementary to work with Ms. ------. I
arrived to the elementary school around 12 and stayed until 3. To my surprise, the class I observed was a
mix between 3rd graders and fifth graders. Initially, walking into this classroom was
extremely overwhelming and confusing. I
went to my normal seat in the back right of the room, like usual, but felt
almost uncomfortable. Half of the kids
(the third graders) were on the floor looking up at the smart board and the
other half (the fifth graders) were sitting at the desks. Each student had a math packet to practice
for testing that they’ve been working on for many weeks now. Tomorrow is the 3rd graders day
for testing so Ms. --- focused mainly on the third graders and let the fifth graders
do their own thing.
Knowing that the test is tomorrow,
I began to feel very anxious for the students because they are not well
prepared whatsoever for this test. The
third graders were supposed to finish up to chapter 12 in their packet during
spring break. While checking over their
answers, Ms. ---- and I realized that most of the students either didn’t
finish the packet or even stopped at chapter 6.
This was extremely frightening because the test was so soon! These twin girls, who I usually work the most
with, didn’t even finish chapter 5. Ms.
---- called them out but didn’t do anything else about it. All she said was “go over the rest of the
packet with your mom tonight before the test.”
I was in shock that she didn’t try to help them earlier on.
Her teaching strategies were
completely unorganized and unsupportive.
She basically sits at her desk, while the students’ just work on their
packets. While the third graders were
going over and correcting their packets, some fifth graders were working on
their packets and two of the students volunteered to clean the closet in the
classroom. Ms. ---- agreed to their
offer, but didn’t watch them. A couple
of minutes later, I looked towards the closet and was in astonished to see that
the two boys were climbing the cabinets in the closet and were fooling
around. If I didn’t see them sooner, one
of them would’ve definitely fallen or gotten hurt somehow. I told Ms. ----- to go to the closet and all
she did was yell at them to go back to their seats.
Then, she realized that one of the
students who volunteered to clean the closet didn’t do any of his packets and
that is why he volunteered. When she
realized that he didn’t do any of the work in the packet, Ms. ---- was trying
to think of a way to punish him. One of
the students screamed out loud, “Why don’t you call his mom?” Ms. ----- followed
through with that girl’s shout out and decided it would be a good idea to call
this boys mom in front of the whole class.
I was entirely in disbelief. Yes,
the boy didn’t finish his work, but that doesn’t mean you call his mother in
front of his friends and classmates. I
thought this was entirely wrong. Then,
his mother was speaking too fast and Ms. Ramos isn’t too good at Spanish so she
put the phone on speaker (for everyone to hear) and asked one of the girl students
to translate what she was saying and to speak for her. This was beyond inappropriate. After this phone call, the whole class was
laughing and the boy was now even more distracted from his work, which affected
him for the rest of the day. Ms. ----- didn’t
consider the fact that calling him out in this way would stay with him
throughout the whole day.
I really disagree with Ms. ----’
teaching strategies and morals. I don’t think
she should be teaching elementary school students or any students at all. Students fear her and that should never be
the case. Students should admire and look
up to their teachers as role models.
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