My second week of teaching

As the second week here comes to a close, I'd like to reflect on what I have done in the classroom this past week. We'll start with today, Thursday:

I arrived at school at the normal time (8:30 am). Today, instead of going to my normal class, 3B, I went into the 4B classroom. The teacher, Raphael, has been asking me to help teach his students about animals and describing them. So when I got into the class, they all asked me questions (What's your name? How old are you? Where do you live?) When I explain that I live in Missouri, most of the kids get confused. In Italy, they don't have states, they have regions. America is huge and we have states and the kids do not study American geography so they are very confused by this concept. Then it is time for the English lesson. Their book is full of pictures and songs that help them learn the english language. I think it is so smart that kids learn English at such a young age because it is easier to learn that way. However, they learn British English which is more different from American English than I originally thought. For example, today they were talking about whether animals had certain characteristics or not. The book example was a monkey and it asked "Has this monkey got wings?" and answered "No, it hasn't." In American we would say, "Does this monkey have wings?" and answer "No, it doesnt." There were many little differences that I noticed and explained to the class that in American, we say things differently even though it is the same language. When I was done in 4B, it was time for break and so I went with 3B again. It was their break so they ate a snack and went outside to play. The playground at their school is just a little bit of blacktop and then a bigger piece of land. They don't have playsets and swings at the elementary school. But I think this also forces the kids to be creative. They have so many games that they play! I never notice anyone being left out of playing games either. They have such a sense of community in their class, that they include everyone who wants to play. After break, I got swarmed by 4th grade students and they asked me many of the same questions I always get. "Where are you from" "What is your name" "How old are you" "Do you like...." The fourth level teacher left me and my 3B teacher, Antonella with her students! I ended up answering a question from just about every kid. When i finally got back to my class, I helped teach history. Last week, Antonella gave me pictures of Homo Sapiens doing different activities and had me write a simple sentence on them. Today, I presented them, the students repeated what I had said in Italian to see if they understood, and then they repeated what I said in English. We drew a river, mountains, hills, and land on the chalk board and taped the pictures where they would belong. Then each student got a picture to color and they will eventually cut them out, tape them to a poster, and write the english sentence underneath! It is so much fun and the kids love it! They were all trying to guess what the English sentence meant and they were doing pretty well!

Wednesday:

On Wednesday, my teacher, Antonella, was out for the second day with the flu. I worked with Simona, the other 3B teacher. She doesn't speak much English, but she tries her best. I help her with smaller classroom tasks like stringing ribbon through pieces of paper that the kids will wear at their end of the year festival or passing out paper or taping things down. Since I dont know Italian and she doesnt know English, it's hard to do much translating. This day, I helped teacher measurements because this is the theme for science for all of third grade. With Simona's help, I explained that in America we don't use the metric system. Simona provided me with the conversions and together we explained yard, foot, and inch and how they relate to a meter. I tried this on Tuesday and it didn't go over as well as this lesson. I was very prepared for this particular lesson because Simona had the information to show me that a yard is almost a meter, etc, etc.

Tuesday:

Tuesday, I worked with the 3A class and taught measurements. This day, I don't think I was very awake because I kept making mistakes. First thing in the morning, Simona wanted me to write the date on the board...I wrote March. Then while working with 3A, with a teacher that speaks no English, I kept mixing up my measurements or writing the wrong measurement on the board. I was frustrated with myself and I could tell the students were confused. The problem I had was not having the exact measurement conversions written down. Therefore it was hard to show them in relation to a meter, what the measurement was. I may send the school and American ruler just to show them what a foot looks like! Working with a teacher who doesnt speak english was very very difficult. We used a dictionary and she did a lot of pointing and using her hands. This helped some, but really being able to explain things to the students was hard without having someone translate from Italian to English and vice versa. But we did everything we could and for next time, I would remember to come more prepared instead of trying to do it from memory.

Monday:

Earthquake Day! We didn't have school Monday because this past weekend, the Carpi area saw the worst earthquake it had ever seen. A 6.0 on the Richter Scale, the earthquake caused a lot of damages to towns like Bologna and even some in Carpi's main piazza. The building are very old and not regulated so they couldn't withstand the tremors. My house is a new house (build within the past five years) so there wasn't a single bit of damage. But some houses aren't so lucky. Old, historic churches in towns near Carpi fell down and all of their history with it. It was sad and scary for many people in this area. Thank goodness I was in Florence when it happened! and Thank goodness my family was safe! The schools were closed Monday so that thorough inspections could be done to be sure that the buildings were safe. On Tuesday, I explained to my class that I have felt an earthquake in Missouri, and they all thought that was neat.

Some last musings:

There are many little difference between Italy and America that I want to point out as either ideas for future classroom, things I am missing about home, or things I am noticing. First of all, the students in my school all write on graph paper and everyone writes in cursive, even third graders. Their handwriting is very good. I think this is because of the graph paper. I'm beginning to think that I may use graph paper in my Special Education class to help the students work on handwriting without really knowing that they are. The boxes help making lining up the letters and making them appropriate sizes very easy. Graph paper is also great for math class because the students can easily line up their numbers! Kids also take notes while the teacher orally tells them what to write. I find this strange because I think it would be difficult to remember what the teacher is saying. The teachers also help them organize their notes by using different colored markers for titles or key words or important parts. I'm definitely going to integrate this into my class! The students also rarely do worksheets. They create a lot of posters and do a lot of work on the board or individually in their notebooks. I've noticed how interactive class is and I really like that!

Some things I am currently missing:
1. My starbucks travel mug.
2. Big, normal sized coffee.
3. Starbucks and coffee or tea on the go.
4. Dinner at 6pm.