FIRST WEEK (from 18 to 22 January)

In my diary I will write what I do in class and the experiences I learn every week. Why every week? because of, in my opinion, make a diary of each day can become uninteresting and boring; however, if I summarize everything important in a diary every week can be quite more interesting and productive.

The first day I was very nervous, didn´t know what I was going to face, what kind of teacher  would  assigned me , if would be a primary 1st class, with small and innocent children or 6th of primary where children are more savvy and learn faster. So I spoke to the headmistress and I was introduced to was going to be my teacher and my class, 2nd grade of primary.

After meeting the teacher I realized that she was a good person and a good professional. She treated her children with a lot of love and patience.

From the first moment the class structure surprised me. The tables and chairs were not placed on a regular structure, by rows one after the other; in contrast, as we see in the picture, is structured so that there are no rows in front or behind.

We see a diferent structure of a primary class, there are no rows so it could be good for the students who can pay more atention to the teacher and help their classmates

I asked the teacher the reason of that and she told me that in this way there aren´t complaints because the students don´t see the blackboard well or because they are so far in the class.However, there is also another reason for this structure.The reason  is that the class is structured by teams (mixed teams), organized with a coordinator who is responsible for controlling and managing the team and ensure that all members learn and attend, a delegate of material, an official of the dates, and a spokesperson. Moreover, each of the groups have a job to do every time (tidiness and cleanliness, library, calendar, coexistence …). After a few months, the role of each team changes as well as the tasks of the members.

Another thing that surprised me was the time spent by the teacher to promote coexistence and moral values ​​of the students. She always take the time before starting a class or after recess, for example, resolve any conflicts that arise as fighting, shovings, insults and typical situations of primary school children.

The teacher uses these situations to reward those who do good things and punish those who do something wrong, and at the end of each class, students have some chips or boxes with varied drawings that show if they have worked in class, if student has intervened, if they have respected the speaking time of the companions, if they have complied with the rules of coexistence, etc.

Children should colour the boxes have been complete and leave blank those that isn’t  keep. At the end of each week the teacher give them a reward depending on how many boxes are colored. The awards are usually small jelly beans, chocolates ,stuffed animals that are taken home and should look to the next week, etc.

As I said in the first video of " el rincón de reflexión " , this teacher uses a traditional methodology with a lot of tests. She says that has tried to work on projects and workshops, but she does not see it to be productive with many children class and the age of them; however, she introduces other changes to adapt to the modern methodologies. So she does experiments, statistical tables and graphs with the birthdays of colleagues, meteorology, transport vehicles used by students to go to school, etc.

All this combined with the structure of the class (by teams) and interactive activities with whiteboard and computers make it, I think, a traditional methodology combined with a new way of learning and provide more modern and interesting class.

 With the passage of the days I realized that there were children with problems, from a child who does not stand still and disturbs others, to another boy who does nothing or very little. I counted that there are 4 children with learning difficulties, in my opinion, serious difficulties, but I still don´t know exactly which problems are. Next week I will ask the teacher privately to investigate. All I know is that for some subjects the PT (therapeutic pedagogy) collects some children and takes them to another class.

After my first impressions I will try to explain my experience as practice teacher. 

It is true that at the beginning my role was merely an observer, I only analyzed the children, watched carefully if they had any problems or difficulties, I watched the class structure, methodologies… however, after a few time I wanted more. I wanted to speak in class, but I didn´t have enough confidence to ask my teacher to let me participate. Finally, without having to ask the teacher she was leaving me more time to participate. At first only correcting flaws in the work of the students, but, eventually, I could explain certain subjects if the teacher needed it, I explained what they had to do on the tests, I resolved the doubts, we made ​​interactive whiteboard activities with students, etc.

And, to be honest... I loved it!
Quickly the children began to see me as one of his teachers like any other.

That's why I want to continue learning in my second week at school and I hope that it will come soon.