I am service learning for the most amazing 5th grade classroom! When I first walked into through the door, the first thing that struck my attention was the huge class size... 32 students to be exact. Of the 32 students, 18 are boys and 14 of them are girls. Something quite different for me because in basically every class I have ever been in, the majority of students are female. Also, once I crossed the threshold, I instantly noticed that every single student had wide smiles and beaming eyes looking directly at me; I immediately felt welcomed. Regardless of the large numbers and excitement due to me being a new addition to the class, the students remained composed and calm. Four students were picked by their teacher to give me what they call a "warm welcome." They shook my hand, giggled because my hands were so little and some of them were even my height, and then asked me how my day was, about college, and
myself. They then ended our little mini conversation by saying "Thank you so much for talking with me, I hope you have a great rest of your day and enjoy being at our school" - super professional for a 5th grader if you ask me.
All of this was within the first 10 minutes of me being there and after I was settled the students got right back to paying attention to what their teacher was saying. At this point, I knew she had worked hard to set the norm that when she's speaking, all eyes and ears are on her. Also, I knew that the students and teacher shared a great relationship because they all were so engaged and she was talking about math, which isn't the most exciting thing to listen as a kid.
Class Profile:
- 18 boys vs 14 girls.... 32 total students
- 1 ELL student
- 5 students who speak two or more languages
- 6 academically at risk students
- 10 trauma students
It actually took me a few visits to gather this information from the teacher because I think she really wanted to see if I was going to really become a teacher and actually cared about her students, or if I was just doing for class credit. Honestly, I loved this. It showed she really had her students best interest at heart and she really cared for them.
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