I am officially a teacher candidate! And it feels fantastic!
I started my literacy hour today. This means that I am put into a group of three teachers and four students at a local elementary school and we read to the students using the Text Talk method.
For my assignment I am at Maple wood Elementary School every Thursday for an hour working with second graders. Even though it was my first day, it was quite an experience and an eye opener.
After briefly meeting the kids I noticed their conversation quickly turned to food. This was then followed by each of them pulling out some sort of food from their backpack and revealing that they had all kept these food items to eat when they got home. Now I remember being in school and being hungry by the time the bell rang, but never once did I think to hoard food in my backpack.
Now we had been prepped on how poor this school was. The usual high percentage of free or reduced lunch, a high number of ESL students, and simply that these kids are from broken homes and live below the poverty level.
However, even with that in the back of my head, I was not prepared to see first hand the basic survival skills going into play with second graders.
The second big experience for me was their excitement. This program is not a tutoring program, it is a voluntary literacy hour. Anyone in first or second grade can sign up for it. We had been told that the program was popular with the kids, but I had no idea how much these kids wanted to be there.
I just had a real moment of clarity today. These children were so happy to be there and found so much to be excited about in the simplest of tasks, despite the harsh card life had dealt them. I realized that this is why I'm doing this. These genuine moments right here.
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