Reflection #2

Reflection #2

Anna Hollenbaugh

This week I was helping teach at CPC. CPC was my kindergarten and nursery school. I rotated between different classes, but mostly stayed in my old class, with the same teachers! I really liked what I was doing, it was fun to go back in time and re-jog my memory of kindergarten.

It was really interesting to see the difference between a public and private school system. The biggest change was the size and the student to teacher ratio. In Michigan, there were 23 kids to 1 teacher. In New Jersey, there were 12 kids to one teacher. I would say that the productivity level was about equal in both schools, but the focus level varied. In Michigan, students would feed off of other students wild energy, resulting in mayhem. The number of kids in the class definitely did not help. At CPC, the students would be silly, but not wild enough to really cause a huge distraction.

In Michigan, there were many kids who had behavior issues, which impacted their and other students learning process.  Since CPC was a private school, many of the kids had families who nurtured them and were very involved in their life.

Going into this week I was not sure what to expect. By the end of the week, I formed a really good relationship between the kids and my old teachers. It was really fun to re-connect and catch up.

I certainly benefited from this week. I learned more about if I wanted to continue a path in teaching kindergarten. I realized that when thinking of teaching subjects, you have to think of ways to make the material fun. Kids do not respond well to boring textbook lessons, but when you bring arts and crafts into the mix, it is fun. In both schools, I created a poster board. The farm land was my project at CPC. It was the background for their play. It will be fun to go to their play on June 6th, and see how much they improved!