The Community and School

The community is an important resource that is often overlooked by far too many school systems. In my hometown, the school gets the most support for its sporting events. While the academics do get some community attention through the school board, Parent Teacher Group (PTG) meetings, and our local newspaper, sports draw the most attention. This is no surprise, as attending the different games the school hosts is one of the few things to do in our small town. While community support is high for our different sporting teams, the academic side of the school still needs to be addressed.

Our newspaper posts the names of the children who make the Honor Roll for each semester along with any achievement made by any of the schools teams (academic or otherwise). This is partnered with our school board meetings which allow for an additional praise of students, and also an open forum for discussion. The community also has the opportunity to voice its opinion at PTG meetings. Many faculty members, including the principals and superintendent, attend these meetings so the comments are going right to the top.

Overall, I think that my community does a decent job making itself known to the public. There are many opportunities for the communty to make its voice heard, and there are multiple outlets for the community to also step up and lend a hand.

Parent Teacher Conference

I feel that the conference went very well. The first conference was fairly straightforward, and went much as I had expected it to. I did discover during this conference however that it can be difficult to explain to parents how a child may be misbehaving during school. You have to always remain respectful and offer strategies on how the behavior may be corrected. The difficult conference was the true test. With difficult parents, an already stressful conference is made incredibly difficult. Even the simplest of explanations can be next to impossible if the parents do not want to hear it. All in all I have learned that parents really control the entire situation when it come to the conference. No matter how much you may plan, the outcome of the conference is almost entirely up to them. You do however have the ability to steer the meeting in a direction that will benefit the student. Really the entire conference is set up to help the student and that is what matters most.

Drug Abuse

Drugs affect more than just the person taking them. When a person is under the influence of illegal drugs, they also heavily impact that persons family. I have known this for quite a while, and after watching this video my thoughts have been further confirmed. A drug user's family suffers as more money is spent on drugs instead of food, as well as more time is devoted to drugs rather than their children. No good can come for a child of a drug user. Along with the direct actions to the child, are the long term affects. A child of a drug user will not function as well as they could in school. The abuse they receive at home will transfer to school and will appear in their demeanor, appearance, social life, and behavior. Drugs only have the ability to ruin a person's life and often enough drugs ruin an entire family.

Poverty and homelessness are serious problems for youth in America.

With poverty and homelessness there are innumerable problems that children face. There is the possibility that not only are children forced to move around from shelter to shelter, but also school to school. This coupled with a lack of nutrition leads to a life that would be very difficult for adults, let alone children, to live. In the case of poverty there is also a good chance that the parents are also working at least one job full time, so they will not spend much time at home. Because the parents are not at home the children are forced to grow up much sooner than they should be and may feel obligated to look after the family themselves.

Children are being subjected to the harshness of reality much to soon, which in turn has a negative effect on their schoolwork. In order to combat this as a teacher I would make sure that my students are aware of any programs the school has to offer in regards to free breakfast and/or reduced/free lunch. Also I would find information on organizations in the community that could provide some form of assistance to their families. I would also make myself available after school to help any student that wanted help on their assignments. It may also be possible to incorporate a lesson on poverty into the classroom. What is more important however is simply to be there for the children.

Reflection 1

Throughout my life I have wanted to be many things: a firefighter, a lawyer, a pediatrician, the list goes on. It was not until my sophomore year of high school that I truly discovered that I wanted to become an elementary school teacher. That year I was given the opportunity to teach a third though fifth grade class at my Sunday School. I had had worked with these children before, as I had been the teacher’s assistant for the kindergarten through second grade class for two years prior and I jumped at the chance to have my own classroom. At first things seemed to be particularly overwhelming. I had simply not imagined a teacher’s job being quite as difficult as it actually is. All difficulties aside, the absolute joy I get from standing in front of a class makes any amount of work completely and totally worth it. There is nothing more exhilarating than getting up and teaching a classroom full of students.