Prompt #1 The School

As part of a requirement for my major in the teaching program, everyone has to complete a FNED course, which gets college students like me and my fellow classmates a chance to experience being in a school with young children. We are assigned to low income city schools. My first day at the school was February 12, 2010. When I woke up that morning I didn’t know what to think or what I would be faced with. My mind was racing I knew I wouldn’t feel better till I got to the school and saw the kids. My friend Amanda, and Kayla and I were all assigned to the same school so we decided to go all together the first time. As we were driving we were observing the area. Near our school, there were a lot of new building, they are newer schools, the building were crystal clear, no graffiti which is honestly what I thought I would have seen and I was more shocked when I didn’t see it. Our school is direct next to tenement houses, but they are brand new and very well taken care of. The City school that I volunteer at, is faced in an awkward direction, when you pull in, you can only go so far, because there are gates that don’t let cars or busses pull up to the front of the school, I found this a little strange, because this makes the parents have to park at the side of the school and watch their children make it all the way up to the front of the school by themselves, which for a little kid is a long walk.
When Kayla, Amanda, and I got out of the car we were remarking at how nice the school looked, it is a very nice building, only when you look it, it does not strike you as an elementary school, because it was rather large. When we got to the front door we had to wait to be buzzed in, which made me feel good that they do take the time to pay attention to who is entering the school. The office is directly to the left when you enter the door. The secretaries did not pay any attention to us as we walked in the office looking for the binder we needed to put our volunteer sheets in, they were actually yelling at a couple kids. In the beginning it was rather intimidating, but we all started to feel more comfortable after.
Kayla and Amanda and I went our separate ways to our own kindergarten class rooms. I met my first grade teacher Mrs. C. She seemed very nice, but hard on the kids because she wants to see them excel. That week they were doing the letter “L” so the front board was covered with “L” words and they did a couple activities in the morning which incorporated all the kids. The class room was decorated very nicely in the alphabet and numbers.
Later on we all switched to our First grade class room, and I met my teacher Mrs. M. She was extremely nice. Her class room was covered with number lines, alphabets, words. It was very color full so it grabbed a lot of attention. When I was working with some of the kids I had them reference some of the posters that covered the wall so they could use some of the things that they knew and apply it to what has been in the class room all year. After my first day there I was eager to go back, I had a great experience, the teachers and students even the school and location was not what I thought it was going to be.