So, today, I just watched from 11:10-2:10. I am not going to lie, it was pretty boring. But, I was pretty happy with one thing, the teacher is really good for his students. However, the feeling that I have about being in a classroom with a good teacher, I really question what my role is in this classroom. Because in my previous field experience, the teacher, I feel, was very negative for the students. But the teacher with whom I am with now is really a great teacher who cares about his students. One way that he shows me this is by calling all of his students "friends" instead of the typical call of "boys and girls."
This leads me to my next point, and I am recognizing that this is very sensitive. All of the students in his class are Somalian except for 1. I could not pronounce any of the students' names. It made me feel very uncomfortable that I can't say any of my students' names. It really makes me feel that I can't be tell them what to do (for instance tell them that they should not go into other classrooms that they do not belong to) when I do not know how to say their name.
I talked with the teacher a little bit afterwards and it was a very interesting conversation. He told me about how in the refugee camps, the kids have to fight for survival. And most of the time, they don't get any education when they are over there. So, this is there first experience with America as well as education. If they fight for survival and then come here, they may think that they have to fight for everything, and if they do, they will be suspended or expelled. Or diagnosed with EBD because they are behaving inappropriately in class or at recess. It is something for me to think about, how am I going to figure the student's past in the refugee camps with the referral process as well as a Transition IEP? The answer to that, I don't know.
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