First Day field Log
I am placed at St Marquerite School with a Grade 7/8 class. My first day at St Marquerite School me and my partner walked in the school, went to the office and gave the secretary our criminal record checks, then we had to sign in at the office before we entered the classroom. I walked into the classroom and the kids were all eating lunch because me and my partner had got there around 12.The classroom was very unorganized and had two big fish tanks one at the front of the room and one at the back. There weren’t many posters hanging up and if there, they were all scattered. Me and my partner started going around the room and introducing ourselves, getting to know their names, asking the kids what they thought of Mr. White, what they had did in their morning classes that day. Then we joined the kids outside on the playground and just introduced ourselves to other kids in many different grades. They asked the common questions like any kid would, why are you here, how old are you, what classroom are you in, what do you like to do for fun. I really enjoyed not just bonding with our designated grade but with many other kids in different grades. We then went back into the classroom to start the afternoon English class and something occurred that really shocked me is that each kid had their own laptop. In my school that I graduated from we had a smartboard and we shared laptops with different classes. When I saw that each kid had their own computer just shocked me, the teacher also showed us that he doesn’t print out handout for them he shares the assignments through a program called 1Note. All of these things shocked me because the learning was so technology influenced, he put the audio for a novel on, then he put the pages of the novel on the projector screen and also told them to copy and paste pictures on a concept map on their laptops of the main ideas. While doing the skills of listening, reading and typing that seems like a lot to do at once. I don’t really understand the concept behind why they do all that multi-tasking.
The way the classroom in this picture isn’t how it looked at lunch time, but the space was very confined and unorganized. When I was a kid we always had desks with the chairs attached, but in high school we had big tables with normal chairs like in this picture. This classroom made me feel very claustrophobic and it gave me the sense that the teacher is really easy going and doesn’t really care what it looks like during the day as long as it is clean by the end of the day.
