First Observation

I've been working with the same children all year, and every time I enter the classroom, I feel frustrated at the behavior management (or lack thereof) that is in place. The kids are so excited and adorable and love to be there at school, but the classroom discipline is so ineffective that it completely interferes with student learning. There is a system of color cards for each student, ranging from green to red, but when a child gets on red (which happens every 15 minutes or so), there is no real consequence it seems. They are even to a point where kids are on "double-red" and even "quadruple red." This is no deterrent, apparently, because kids continue to act up and aren't visibly bothered to be on red.

I arrived in the morning, before any of the children had yet entered the classroom, and as the kids began to arrive, they were warmly greeted at the door by Mrs. M. Free-play was available to children as they waited for other students to arrive, including dress-up and house, blocks, or coloring. Then as the announcements began, students took their seats and colored a worksheet about George Washington Carver, but were never read the captions and never connected the words on the page to the pictures. I kept hoping that somehow the significance of this person on the pages before the children would be explained, but then the papers were collected and children entered "circle time"- the morning routine with a rhyming song.

Next came the whole group literacy lesson- using Open Court. It's not the teacher's fault, because the city requires using this basal reading program, but the kids are so obviously disinterested! Mrs. M had many of the children engaged as she used her lion puppet to reinforce pronunciation of words and rhyme during the lesson, but it is always difficult to capture students' attention completely in a whole group setting. This observation reminded me of my first lesson that I taught to these students: it was pretty much a disaster. I tried to keep the whole group together and paying attention for one hour (Kindergarteners! What was I thinking???), and now I know I can never do that again. Small groups work well to keep children interested and on-task, and I've learned that either these children have not really been taught or are developmentally unable to work independently without getting into some sort of behavioral trouble.