Today's Orientation

Today was the first day that our class visited the school we are going to be observing. First, I have to say that I was simply amazed by how nice the school was and how nice the particular part of Newark was! People always criticize how the city is, and like I mentioned in my previous blog... you never know until you are there for yourself. Overall, I really enjoyed my experience today and I look forward to working with my site liazon.

I particuluary enjoyed getting to associate with certain members of the facolty. Every person was very polite and encouraging and really helped me understand key points [within the brief 5 minute period]. I got a lot of information out of the first year teacher, the union representive, and the student teachers. Anything I agree more with is the fact that people were HONEST with you. I think that the student teachers blunty told you what to expect in the next couple of years and I also liked how the first year teacher told us her experience and how she had first day jitters, but that will all go away with time. The union representative also helped our group with several key factors that we should know and how teaching as a career has many benefits. I am pretty thankful that my mother works in the school system and already advised me as much as she could on the teacher's union. More more aspect of today's meeting was the Parent Association. I think it is a GREAT idea for parents to volunteer in their children's schools to help not only their children get more involved, but also give back to the community at the same time.

Lastly, the tour, though brief was very nice. All the classrooms seem to be pretty technology-advanced, as in my town's new school and will be very helpful to students. Our tour guides were so proud to show us around! My site liazon was very polite to me and she seems like she will be a very nice woman to work with. I booked my full-day shadowing for this coming Wednesday, October 17th. Like menitoned before, I am looking forward to working with her and will definitely keep the class updated on what happens during the day! I also chose to attend a meeting on Wednesday as well. We'll see how everything goes!

Until then!