Required Assignment Number 1

Maria Gonzales is one of those teachers that a student goes to school for. Her all around type of personality fit so well in the first grade classroom in North Beach Elementary. Here are the many things that I learned from this particular teacher.
Maria had around twenty five students in her classroom. Each one of them had a different background. One was Spanish, the other Asian, the other African American etc. Although, they were all different, she treated each one in their own particular way. She had this sense of fairness to each and every student even though each one was different in their own way.
Maria herself is Spanish, so she already knew what it was like being here without fitting in to this society right away. This experience just helped her even more with her students. She recognized whenever a student had trouble communicating and addressed it with having other students pay attention to see the diverse aspects of the classroom.
Most of her learning styles were hands on material. This to me made sense, because first graders are still young, and having that hands on learning helped them grasp more of the concepts so that it stuck.
The classroom was set up with groups of desks bunched together. This made it easier for her, because the students would have that particular group that she was able to monitor and see what was going on. By having the grouping like this, she was able to have those students that tend to act out more than others separate into a group with those more studious. This just helped her as well have that control in the classroom that was needed.
The atmosphere in the classroom was definitely a warm place where anyone would feel comfortable attending.
The material in the classroom alternated from English, Math, Science, Literature and then a topic that was taught about different things that was going on in the world today.
There was one student in the classroom that had Type A Diabetes. She was only able to snack on healthy food. One day, she forgot her snacks at home, and being such a young girl she was hungry. Maria had stated the case in the classroom and all of a sudden different students started offering some of their healthy snacks. This just shows how when one student needed something the provisions were made to help that particular student.
She encouraged all her students to understand the diversity between each one of them. If a situation came up where a student was being inappropriate towards another student’s background or language, Maria would address it. She would then make it clear how what was done was not appropriate and how everyone in the classroom is equal.



To reflect on the classroom in general, I must say that it was the perfect class for me to do my Service Learning in for this semester; because there was really a diverse group of students. Having this, I was able to see how multicultural awareness really takes place. I understand now that actually being multiculturally aware is something that is learnt over an amount of time. I am never going to know everything about every different culture before I begin to teach in a classroom. I feel like now I know it is a more learn as you go experience. That if I do get faced in a classroom with something that I am unaware of, I will then have to go home and try to look up what it is I do not know. Once I understand the new knowledge I will then be prepared in the future if it ever comes up again.
I also became aware of the many different paradigms that take place in one particular classroom. There is the teacher, the student, and in this particular case me as the observer. The teacher views the classroom as her domain where it is her job to control the students and give off the knowledge that she has gained to them. The student’s paradigm is completely different. They are not in control, so they view the classroom in a totally different way. They are viewing more on how to make more friends, or how they can fit in. With me though, I’m viewing both paradigms to try to understand as much as I can for my particular profession. There is so much that I took notes on that I hope will stick with me for when I will be able to have that control in a particular classroom.
All in all, I feel like this class is something that really must be taken seriously. There are so many concepts that are so important to know before even thinking of stepping into a classroom to teach. Going in, I was definitely viewing this class as another class that I have to get over with. However, as the concepts and different ideas were coming up, I definitely saw that this was not just another class that I was attending.
I hope that after this field experience and the knowledge I gained from EDF 2085 I can be one step closer to my true goal in becoming a teacher.