Prompt #1

The neighborhood in which my school is located is rather confusing. On my way to the school I drive through a very urban part of the city where all the buildings are very close to each other and you can almost always hear someone’s stereo turned a few notches too high. However, when I turn onto the street the school is located on there are all beautiful two story homes and it’s very quiet. After parking in the rather small parking lot I had to walk a little ways to get to the main entrance of the school.

When I got to the front doors I couldn’t help but notice two signs, one in English and one in Spanish, telling me to ring the bell on the left to enter. There was a voice that told me to check it to the main office. Once I did that I walked through the rather colorful hallways to my classroom located at the very end of the hall. I was pleasantly surprised by all the smiles when I walked into the classroom. Ms. King announced to the class, which consisted of primarily Spanish and African American students, that I would be here every Wednesday for the next few months and all the students smiled, which made me smile.

The classroom was very large and gave the students plenty of room to do what they needed to. There were six large tables that each seated four students. There were also different stations for the students to do their “centers” such as a small library for silent reading, a reading rug for read alouds, a globe and a map for history, and they used the tables they sit at for the writing center. In the corner of the room there was a small teacher’s desk which was primarily used for storage because Ms. King is never sitting at it. Overall the school and classroom were very welcoming and comfortable to me.

I quickly found out what was valued in this school and classroom, respect. It was very rare for me to see any disrespect but when a student disrespected anyone Ms. King was there to keep them in check. Another thing that is valued in this classroom is responsibility. Every day the students got to choose their own centers to go to but, they were responsible for evenly distributing their time among all centers and completing all the work that needed to be done.

The students were sad to see me leaving but it was a great start to my tutoring program and I can’t wait to continue.