Prompt 7

My experiences in the VIPS program has helped shape my teacher identity by getting me into a classroom. While I want to teach high school history, volunteering in Mrs. Smith’s second grade class proved to be very beneficial. As an individual, I feel I have an identity I want to express as a future teacher. Through finally being in a classroom, I was able to discover that I do enjoy working with students in the classroom, and plan to continue with secondary education in order to have a career as a teacher. Contributing to my teacher identity, tutoring at Led Zeppelin Elementary taught me to nurture student learning, created awareness of students’ struggles, and demonstrated that properly disciplining students requires skill.

During my tutoring sessions in Mr. Smith’s class, another tutor, Joan, and I, had four students selected to tutor. The students’ names were Mac, Denis, Frank, and Charlie. All of the students were male, ages seven and eight. Mac, Denis, Frank, and Charlie all needed help with reading and word pronunciation. All four of the students were around the same reading level, which was behind the rest of their classmates. Joan and I split the group into two, and each week took a different pair of students. The children and I worked together at a round table in Mrs. Smith’s class. The speech therapist at the school provided us with phonic games. The games revolved around a long list of words to teach our students. I used this list for a couple weeks. After this, I switched to tutoring them on their weekly spelling words. Each week they had a different set of words to learn for a spelling test on Friday. By teaching them how to sound these words out, I was able to help them boost their spelling test scores. Ideally, they can use this same method of pronunciation to increase their vocabulary, and achieve a higher reading level. After using their spelling words for the phonic games, I set up a make believe test, gave the students a sheet of paper to number, and had them spell out the words as I read them. I recreated the students testing environment to strengthen their confidence during the real test.

Now this idea might sound fun and easy, but it required three important elements as a tutor. I had to be patient, compassionate, and find a method outside of the games provided in order to keep the kids interested. How many times can a student play the same game, Even using different words, the students get bored and start misbehaving. This is how my teacher identity changed. The demand to keep the lesson going while a student misbehaved created inner conflict. I do not enjoy being an authoritative person, but as a teacher, one must establish the demand for respect. When I am a teacher, I will reveal this expectation on the first day of class. Finding a way to maintain peace in the classroom, without being stern will be a challenge. If you are too nice, then the students begin to take advantage of that, I will not yell, or punish, there must be other ways. During one of my visits, a female substitute came in so Mrs. Smith could meet with a parent. The kids got a little noisy, and this woman screamed at these kids, she actually made the hair on my nock raise. I would never do that to a group of children. By respecting my students, I would create an environment suitable for kids. Elementary school students are going to misbehave at times. Such a realization has not deterred me from wanting to become a teacher. Even though I only spent fifteen hours working in a classroom, I learned a a lot about kids, classroom dynamics, and methods of teaching.