Week 12
- Maria Pairitz
- Apr 6, 2018
- 3 min read
Fishers was on spring break so I didn't have my mentorship. I did, however, have a really unpleasant experience at Fairview Elementary during my field experience this week. I've been going to Fairview for the past five weeks, so at this point I know the students and understand the general atmosphere in our art room. This past week, I was having them work on creating a foil sculpture of a Pokemon they created. One student, T., made a knife from the foil and began to chase his friend around the room. The friend was obviously not in danger because it was foil, but I ended it right when it started. My cooperating teacher witnessed this too, and he's the type to brush stuff off to the point where I feel he's too lackadaisical (making threats but never following through, never reprimanding kids for very rude before, etc.) Anyway, I go over to T. and asked if he remembered when I said that everyone needed to follow the rules and work with the materials appropriately or else they would not get to continue participating in the project. And he was like "no!" and I said, well I did, and I've repeated it multiple times, so I think you're going to have to sit out for the rest of class. I didn't want to do it, but these kids literally have no repercussions so I thought I was doing a good thing. He runs to the corner tearing up, which is hard for me because he acts really tough. So I walk over to him and sit on the ground with him and ask if he understood why it was innappropriate to make a knife out of the foil and then chase his friend and he nodded. Then I asked if he could behave would he like a second chance. Then he said, "I just can't do it, so I don't want to!" At this point I realized that he probably made a knife because he didn't feel confident creating the Pokemon, so he made something he knew he would be successful at instead of failing at something new....or he was just being a kid, who knows. So I said I would be willing to help him get started and he nodded okay. As I went to go get his supplies to bring them to him, I turned and see the resource officer standing behind me. My teacher had called the f****ing resource officer on this kid. At this point I was so furious I wanted to cry. This teacher had literally escalated the situation WAY more than it needed to be. Luckily the resource officer did not take him down to the officer, but I could see T. no longer wanted to engage in class. I have never thought so low of another teacher before. Can't wait for this field experience to be over with.
Anyway, thought it was a valuable experience in knowing exactly what not to do when a student is misbehaving in my room. Sure, if the fake knife had been something that could actually hurt the other student, that would call for harsher punishment, but it was foil and they are in third grade, they will do stupid things.
Here is some of the artwork they've created so far in my class!
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