Reflections Upon Day One of Student Teaching

My first day of student teaching went really well. The teacher is great, the students are great, and everyone I have encountered so far has been very nice to me. It does turn out that I am working exclusively with severely disabled students. Every one of them is probably functioning at low level intellectual and cognitive functioning. The array of diagnoses, as best as I can tell, range from autistic to mentally retarded to visually impaired. The students are learning simple reading, math, and life skills. But they are very nice kids, and I look forward to working with each and every one of them.

In addition, my assigned teacher is as nice as can be. She is able to answer every question I have, rarely loses control when stressed, and already treats me like a colleague. In fact, I consider her to be the antithesis of my old boss at the preschool I worked at. She was very impatient, and felt children should be trained like dogs (she herself has admitted both things). The stark contrast between who I am working for then and now incredible.

I will say the only downside so far is getting used to the schedule. I am definitely not used to it yet, but I know I will have to get used to. This is something I am going to be doing for many years to come.

President-Elect Obama on Meet The Press

Isn't it encouraging to have a President that will value science again? Another education quote from the interview:

“There is an incredible bully pulpit to be used when it comes to, for example, education: Yes, we're going to have an education policy; yes, we're going to be putting more money into school construction. But ultimately we want to talk about parents reading to their kids. We want to invite kids from local schools into the White House.”