Lessons

Well, my first year in 4th grade is rolling right along. My team is great and I enjoy being both the science and technology "expert." If you really knew me, then you would know that this is really the blind leading the blind... but I do try to share the few things I do know. I am glad for my previous year in 8th grade science though. My students now ask many science questions which I would probably struggle with if I didn't have some of the background knowledge. I am also happy that I can pique their interest into this favorite subject of mine, as well as higher level scientific thinking.

It is taking some time to get used to and I have found that we spend much time teaching and learning life lessons versus academic lessons. Some of the more interesting ones that I can think of are:
- how to close a locker without slamming
- how to organize your desk cubby
- how to put paper into the brads in your folder
- how to title a paper, and where to write (holes on the left, start at the red line... this has been difficult for most)

One academic lesson that I was shocked about was the fact that my students did not realize there was land at the bottom of the ocean. I was trying to explain how a gulf worked... while talking about landforms and explained that they might remember it as the water from the ocean sorta flooding into a VERY low land area... which sparked comments such as "OHHHHH, so there's LAND at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico?!" And you should have seen my face.... I was like... DUH!... but I didn't say that. Instead I said, "Well, what did you think was at the bottom of the ocean?" And all I got in return was a room full of blank faces. It was hilarious... then someone said "Seaweed....?" When I led them to realize that yes, there was land at the bottom of the ocean it was like the lightbulb came on for the whole room at once. That was a great moment for me and them. I decided that even if they learned nothing else for the rest of the year, at least they knew that there was land at the bottom of the ocean.

My favorite lesson was during a writing lesson. Our weekly prompt was to write about a time you were sad. I always share my story to give them an idea and I decided the only one I really could remember was my September 11 story. The class was on the edge of their seats as I told them all about what I remembered while in college, living in a sorority house. I explained that I was not only sad, but scared and anxious for my family who was in Houston and how I had heard rumors about other bad things happening in big cities. My students who were only 2 when this event happened had a very hard time understanding how something that was happening in New York was affecting my life in Texas. We looked at a map to see the distances and we talked all about how the media makes it close to home. The most interesting part to me was that telling this story to these 4th graders actually choked me up a bit. This was something that hadn't happened before, but then again, I'd never really told anyone the whole thing before. It was so special that not only were these students listening to this story, but they were also asking questions and on the edge of their seats wanting to know more. Of course some of them really didn't know what September 11th was all about and I didn't know how to tell them on a 4th grade level. I decided to not answer certain questions and sent them home that night to ask their parents. I also encouraged them to ask their parents about their stories. We had library that day and since my students have to checkout both a fiction and non-fiction book, many of them came up and showed me they had picked one up about the 9/11 tragedy. It was probably my favorite moment so far. I felt so honored to share my story with these students and even more honored that I had inspired them to search out more about it on their own.

So all in all, my class is wonderful. We are quite a loud bunch, but we are working on that. I go home at the end of each day still loving my job and knowing that I am in the right place doing the right thing.