Final Blog

Observation hours always prove to be a rewarding experience for me, even though they start out as frustrating to accomplish. It is always difficult to observe the types of lessons that our professor's wish for us to see but in the process many other useful aspects of teacher is observed. It was especially interesting to observe in this school because all of the students are classified as being either emotionally disturbed or autistic and many of them have multiple diagnosis's. Because of these severe conditions, the teachers must function quite differently than in a general education school. Their classroom management skills as well as creativity and flexibility are much greater because each student must have an individualized education since their diagnosis's are all different. Many more manipulatives and tools were used in this school to keep the students engaged such as music and visual aids. Even though I was not able to observe a great social studies lesson I was able to see much more of the type of school that I am interested in working in and that is the value that I found in my observations for the semester through P.S 4 and also my new job working with emotionally disturbed children.

Observations 12-10

I observed again at P.4 elementary school and was able to observe a Social Studies lesson in a 5th grade classroom. The students still were classified as being emotionally disturbed. The teacher did a lesson on geography and had the class identify and color in the different states on the map. They were able to work in groups and the teacher played music while they worked. The class worked nicely together and were awarded points for their behavior which can later be turned into a class pizza party. The teacher explained that they only do social studies lessons twice a week and that much of the work that they do comes out of a textbook through reading chapters and learning vocabulary words. She said that they try their best to include activities to break up the work and to make it more interesting but they are not given much wiggle room as how to teach the curriculum. The classroom management skills that the teachers in this school have were amazing because in some of the classes the students were completely out of control.

More Observations

The classroom teacher also showed me the big project that the class had been working which was really cool because it was on Egypt which one group is doing a Webquest on. She had them create pyramids and write a secret message to the younger grades in heiroglyphics on it. They also had their faces superimposed onto an Egyptian mask above their pyramid. The boxes used to create the figures were sanded as well to make them look more authentic. The class was given much praise from the rest of the school due to their creativity and enthusiasm and they were extremely proud of their hard work.

Observations 12-8

I finally observed today!! It was P.S 4 school in Queens and I loved it! The school was beautiful and the staff was super friendly! I observed a 6th grade class of students that all are emotionally disturbed. There were 3 teachers in the classroom but the main teacher gave me a lot of information about her career goals and how she manages her class and how her social studies curriculum is run. There was no lesson given today but the teacher showed me the teacher book that she uses and explained that there is a new system this year. The students are given a text book but no workbook. Instead the teacher is given a cd that she can use to print out worksheets for the students if necessary. Also in each chapter, the text book shows connections from social studies to other subjects and aspects of life such as the economy and literacy which better helps the students understand the concepts and build on prior knowledge. Some worksheets that the teacher had used were entitled "A Geographer's World" and had matching and fill in the blanks with geography terms. The teacher explained that Social Studies was her favorite subject to teach and with the new curriculum it is more enjoyable.

End of the Semester

I still have not been placed for observation hours and am concerned about getting them done before the end of the semester. I am going to work really to get something for this week to try to get it all done. In the meantime I have been speaking with some of my clients at work about what they are doing in their social studies classes. A fifth grader has assignments every night in her textbook and has to do the questions at the end of the chapter. Another client is in 6th grade and had to do a report on the Revolutionary War and look up information in books they took out from the library.