For my ten individual observation
hours, I visited a PreK classroom at Hathaway Brown. The class was comprised of
fourteen students, ranging in ages from four to five year olds, with a teacher
and a teacher’s helper. On my first day, the students wasted no time
incorporating me into their routines. While I was playing with two boys, Thomas
and Elijah, I noticed Mrs. Pietrafese, the teacher, was sitting on the floor working
one on one with a student helping her fix something; I couldn’t get a good look
at what it was. Regardless, I found it interesting how amongst the noise and
activity going on in the classroom, Mrs. Piertrafese was able to seemingly zone
out everything else and focus on the task at hand with a single student.
As the day progressed, snack time
fell upon us. The students were divided amongst three different tables. Above
each table was a handcrafted mobile. I asked Mrs. Piertrafese about the mobiles
above the tables, and she said it was an activity the students took part in
during the first six weeks of school because they wanted to build community amongst
everyone. I found it interesting that despite the young age these students are,
the school made it point to make sure that they felt bonded to one another. For
the first day, everyone got one banana, and one student from the class was
responsible for the distributing the bananas to everyone. A different student distributed a piece of
cloth, which was to act as a placemat, and a cup to every student used for
water. Perhaps the various jobs needed to run snack time efficiently were
assigned to different students to give them a sense of purpose. Before the
students were allowed to eat their snack, they all said a thankful poem
together, along with the teachers. Perhaps they all said this poem together to
gain a sense of appreciation for the food and other blessings they have, versus
the people who are starving in the world. In the middle of each table was a
fake candle that was glowing as the students ate their snack, which were
decorated during the first six weeks as well. I assume a fake was used because
a real candle runs the risk of injury. At the end of snack, the teacher’s
helper went around the each table, and together, they “blew” the candle out by
flicking the switch off on the bottom of the candle.
After snack time, we all bundled up
to go outside to play. Considering I was standing in shin deep snow, I sought
refuge in one of the structures of the playground. Between the structure I was
standing in and the structure a student, Mia, stood in, there lies a rope
bridge. Mia wanted to get down on the ground to play, but she kept on claiming
that she could not do it. Mia did not want to go down the slide because the
snow had piled up on it, and she was also scared to go on the bridge, though. However,
after watching another student cross the bridge, and with my unwavering
encouragement, Mia got down on the ground with no problem. Perhaps Mia feared
using the bridge to get down on the ground because she did not want to fall through
it and hurt herself. It was amazing to see this whole process unfold, seeing a
student faced with a problem and triumphantly not only conquer the problem, but
also conquering her fear of the bridge.
Finally, when we reentered the
classroom after coming inside from playing outside, the students slowly but
surely removed their snow clothes and hung some pieces on the radiator to dry.
When the students were done removing their snow clothes, they were allowed to
play until lunch, which was at noon, or until they got picked up from the
program, which ended at 11:30. I noticed that Thomas approached the teacher’s
helper and claimed that Elijah hit him in the midst of their horseplay. After
listening to Thomas, the teacher’s helper directed Thomas to talk to Elijah. You
normally see the teacher, or in this case, the teacher’s helper, acting as the
mediator between two students when a problem arises. It was great to see the
students talking directly to each other in order to solve the problem between
them. Perhaps Mrs. Pietrafese and her helper use this method of problem solving
to avoid miscommunications.
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