My First Impressions

*Not actual school name

I am a Kindergarten and First grade reading buddy at *George Washington Elementary School. *George Washington is a very nice school on the inside and out. The immediate area around *George Washington is quite busy and crowded, but the school is located on a side road off the busy main road, and seems very safe and secure. There is a large playground and a nice fenced in grassy area for the kids to play outside, and the inside of the school building is wonderfully kept; the classrooms are beautiful, with a nice carpeted area in each and posters all over the walls.

*George Washington has great resources and potential for all students to learn, but sadly I have found that the teachers have all pretty much given up, and are not happy with their job. My first two weeks in the kindergarten class I am in was spent observing the teachers teach literacy for 30 minutes and then help the students do their "worksheets" on the letter of the week. According to the teacher in my Kindergarten classroom it is a new requirement to spend 90 minutes at the same time, every day of the week on the carpet practicing literacy. The same is said for Math in the afternoon. Every teacher in the school must be doing the same things at the same time depending on the children's levels. The teacher told me that one day, two weeks ago, they had a long fire drill and missed the majority of their literacy group, so the teacher decided that she would do 45 minutes of literacy in the afternoon, and 45 minutes of math, well…… the math coach came in while she was doing literacy and he was not happy, she was forced to immediately switch gears to math.

The whole time that I was in this class the children were restless; fidgeting, picking on others, wanting to use the bathroom, raising their hands, wanting to tell the teacher about their dinner last night, etc. At the most, maybe 2 of 25 students were paying attention to the teacher and would answer questions correctly when called on.

When I heard Jonathan Kozol speak last week, I was moved, and he made it clear to me that there are major problems in today’s schools: The principals must make sure that teachers keep up to state standards, and the teachers are stressed out and afraid because they must always be on track, therefore they are very impatient with the children and the children are unhappy and don't like school, so…… they act up. In the first grade class I am in, a little girl was telling me a story about how her dog was sick, and the literacy coach heard her telling me. The literacy coach immediately told me that You can’t be afraid to interrupt students, and don’t let them tell stories because, there is work to be done. I did not know what to say, and it broke my heart; especially when the literacy coach yelled at this little girl afterwards.

It seems that living up to the states standards is what is really valued in this school. There was no children's artwork on the walls because there is no time for creativity (as both classroom teachers told me). The kindergarten teacher I am with, says that she has been teaching for many years now, and she would love to do creative things because she thinks that the children would learn better from them (I agree), but says the school has certain rules that they want you to follow, and you can either follow them or leave (It seems, most schools are like this now days)! You can tell that every single one of the students in the kindergarten classroom that I sat in, at *George Washington, could not wait to go home, have lunch, or simply do anything other than sit on the carpet repeating after the teacher any longer. Both teachers were very nice, but were quite frustrated that everything has to be a certain way, and there are no exceptions.

This school is a great school, and has a lot of potential, but students are not actively involved in the learning (other than answering questions incorrectly, and repeating words and sounds), and are bored. If the teachers had more freedom in the learning process, I think things would be different in this school.