Hannah Lashbrook

Slomski

EN 201

3 March 2017

Field Placement Reflection

During my field placement, I was placed in Brenda Tietemas second grade classroom at

St. Thomas the Apostle School. I worked in the classroom every Wednesday from eight to eleven

thirty in the morning throughout the month of February until March 1st. I was very apprehensive

at first about this for multiple reasons. One of the first reasons that I was apprehensive was

because I did not know what to expect. Would I be helping with grading papers or lesson

planning? Would I be stuck in the copy room or run errands the majority of the time? I truly did

not know. I found that it would be a balance between these things. One of the major things I

learned during my placement was that a teachers job is just a much in the classroom as it is out

of the classroom. For the amount of time a teacher teaches, they will have a similar amount of

time spent doing paperwork, copying, and planning.

My first day in the classroom was busy. I arrived around eight in the morning, and had to

ask directions to get to the office because I was lost. When I arrived at the office, I signed in and

received paperwork to fill out. I was directed to Mrs. Tietemas classroom. When I met her she

was a little flustered. It was Catholic schools week, and they were headed to morning mass.

Morning mass was the first thing we did every Wednesday. It is roughly a half hour long. I was

very nervous about this. I am not religious by any means so I was concerned that I would do

something deemed disrespectful by accident during mass. As someone who only goes to

Christmas and Easter service with my family, I am very inexperienced in church. I followed the
class and Mrs. Tietema into the chapel for mass, and I became very confused. Catholic mass is

much more detailed than any service I have ever attended. All of the kids recited the same hymns

and prayers, and I did not know them at all. It made me worried that I was being rude because I

was not fully participating in the mass. Of course this was not intentional though because I am

just ignorant when it comes to religion. Going to mass every Wednesday morning was a bit of an

eye opener. As something I was most apprehensive about because it was unfamiliar, I have

gained an appreciation for going to chapel. It was cool to see a large group of children and adults

come together to share an appreciation for the same thing. It was cool to observe. It opened my

eyes, and gave me a better understanding of those who are religiously affiliated.

After mass, Mrs. Tietema and I took the second graders back to their classroom for math.

I worked on math flashcards every time I was in the classroom. The first couple weeks, I worked

with multiple children on all of their math facts. I would hold the flashcards up, and they had

around four to five seconds to answer. After they answered, I would place the card in one of three

piles: correct, incorrect, or too slow. As the weeks went on, I worked with less children on math

facts, and the kids I did work with were focused on certain cards they had repeatedly gotten

wrong. It was very hard to explain the cards they got wrong to the students at first because I only

knew how to explain it in a more complex way, but eventually I started watching some of the

kids using my explanations to figure out other cards they struggled with. That was really cool.

During my placement I made a lot of copies. All of the copies I made were for the

students reading books. I would take the example or original copy of the storybook, and make

two copies each of five different books per level. I made many copies for levels F, G, H, I, J, and

K. During my fourth week, Mrs. Tietema told me there was an issue with some of the original

copies of multiple books in some of the levels. This is something I had brought to her attention
during an earlier week when I found one original book copy seemed off. Mrs. Tietema found that

there were issues with more than just that book, but about five or six more. Mrs. Tietema asked

me to find a fix to this issue. This was a very hard issue to fix. I did not even know where to start

at first. I decided to examine all of the faulty original copies to see if they had anything in

common, and then compare that with a correct original copy. What I found was that the faulty

copies were all right side up. For a book to be copied correctly, every other page needs to be

upside down before you put it into the copy machine. If they are not upside down, like the faulty

copies, the book will come out of the copy machine with every other page upside down and out

of order. It was a difficult find, but I persisted and found it. I was very proud of myself because I

had no experience with this issue.

Throughout my placement, I also helped the students with their math quizzes and Mrs.

Tietema with grading papers. On my first day, I helped two students with double-checking the

answers to their math quiz about measurements. They had to estimate how tall they were in

yards, feet, and inches, measure themselves using a yardstick and ruler, and then double their

measurements. The goal was to see if they could properly measure themselves. I was very

confused during this activity. I worked with two students on their answers, and I came across

some issues that I was unsure how to deal with. Firstly, I did not understand the directions that

well. In hindsight, I should have asked for further explanation of the directions, but we were

running behind and I did not want to be a bother. Secondly, I did not know if the students

answers were already correct or if I was double-checking them because they were wrong. I asked

for some help from another helper, and she cleared the situation up a little bit. After that, it was

only a little hard to tell the little girl that she was not four yards tall.
 My third week in Mrs. Tietemas classroom was the first time I got to help grade papers. I

really enjoy grading papers so this was one thing I was looking forward to when I found out we

would be placed in classrooms. One of the sheets I was helping grade was a Valentines Day

activity sheet. The students measured classroom objects (crayons, crayon box, pencil, scissors)

with candy hearts. They also had to count how many of each color they had in the candy heart

box, and color in the hearts on the worksheet from greatest to least for the colors in their candy

heart box. Everyone was doing really well on this portion of the worksheet until I got to

Christopher. I noticed that Christophers hearts were not colored in greatest to least or least to

greatest. They were in a strange pattern that did not match his tallies of his candy hearts. Because

his tallies properly corresponded his colors, I was confused why he colored them out of order. I

asked Mrs. Tietema if Christopher was colorblind. She was a little surprised by my question, but

admitted she did not know if any of the students were colorblind. Mrs. Tietema did tell me that

Christopher was dyslexic though. Automatically, I knew that he had colored the hearts in a

pattern that is correlated to symptoms of dyslexia. Mrs. Tietema was impressed with my ability

to question colorblindness, and my ability to adjust to the symptoms of dyslexia. During recess,

she told me that in all her years of teaching she had never wondered about colorblindness, and

she commended me for asking her this. She was very impressed with my ability to understand

something she would have just marked wrong. Mrs. Tietema also asked me how I knew the signs

of dyslexia because they do not teach teachers these things. I told her my brother was dyslexic

and that it really does range from case to case. Also depending on the criticalness of it, it can be

worked through. My brother struggles less with dyslexia now than he did when he was ten years

old. We also discussed the recent studies I had read on ADD and ADHD, and I shared with her
some compelling research I have found about this new generation of technologically advanced

children.

This conversation with Mrs. Tietema was probably one of the most important points

during my field placement. I had no idea that teachers were not taught about how to recognize

the symptoms of major learning disabilities, and when she told me that it made sense. Watching

the experience of my parents and my aunt who had to fight for my brother and cousins IEP

requirements to be fulfilled for their dyslexia, made me think that the teachers were just being

negligent. For the first time, I saw the situation throughout the eyes of the teacher. A worried

teacher that was willing to learn about something that her education did not give her. This is

something that needs to be changed. It is pivotal to the success of students with learning

disabilities and to their teachers, for their teachers to be able to recognize and be able to teach

these disabilities. This is something that baffled me, and I hope as a teacher I can help students

with disabilities rise to their full potential because I will continue to teach myself about these

learning disabilities.

My last day was Ash Wednesday. It was a busy day of prepping for the upcoming March

reading month, and the other events of the day. I did math facts with Elizabeth, Trent, and Ella

and they are definitely improving since my first week there. Trent especially considering he has

really had to work harder to accomplish all of the facts, and he only has about en left! After this,

I graded more math papers while the students presented their biography bags. This is an activity

that Mrs. Tietema assigned them do. It was really cool to learn more about the kids, and see their

interests. I could definitely see myself doing this activity with my future students. It was kind of

sad because I have grown to really enjoy working alongside Mrs. Tietema, Miss Alison, and the

second grade students. Mrs. Tietema told me that I could set up a permanent time slot for every
week in the afternoon to help her if I wanted to because she really appreciates my help. I have to

look over my schedule, but it is definitely something that I am deeply considering. She also gave

me some tips. She told me to always have some form of organization, to always have a back-up

plan, and to always have patience. Some days are harder than others, but you still have to teach

the students every day. I found this to be very good advice!

Overall, my experience was very positive and eye opening. I really enjoyed working with

Mrs. Tietema and her second grade class. They are such bright and caring students whom will

absolutely accomplish a lot. I hope to have the chance to volunteer in her classroom some more

this year!