Time: 8:30AM - 2:45PM
Where: Minneola Elementary
Grade Level: 2nd Grade
Purpose: Junior Achievement
Since this will be my first time teaching in a real, live classroom, I prepared for this day for weeks! I was so nervous that I felt nauseas and slept for only two hours the night before this day. Before driving an hour to Minneola, I stopped at Dunkin Donuts and bought three different flavors of Munchkins, I thought it was a good idea since I will be having the kids make pretend donuts today. Since I like to incorporate plenty of details, I will break down my experience into specific time periods.
8:45AM - 9:30AM (Different Jobs)
As soon as I arrived in the classroom, all of the children yelled "YAY! You're FINALLY here!" and "Wow! Do we get donuts?" "Later." I replied. My nervousness eased down a little, well, I thought to myself, at least they like me. Before I began to put up the "How does a community work?" poster and the "Junior Achievement" banner, I took out my own pre-made name tag which looks like this (the only difference is that the actual name tag was decorated by hand).
"Good morning, everyone! I have met you all about a week ago. I would like to introduce myself first. My name is Wynee Wang, but you could address me as Ms. Wynee. I am a volunteer for a program called Junior Achievement. A volunteer is a person who chooses to help another person or business, but receives no pay. Now, the purpose of our program today is to help you all understand what a community is and how does it work. I am also a college student at UCF, UCF stands for University of Central Florida. I am currently studying to become a teacher! So, before we get started, I will pass out your name tags (which I prepared weeks before), and you will decorate them with crayons or markers, your choice. Here, I'll show you my name tag." So I put my own decorated name tag on display and passed out all 21 students' name tags. "While you are working on this, I am going to set up for our activities." I began to put up the colorful "How Does a Community Work?" poster that Junior Achievement had provided. When I was finished, I noticed that the classroom was set up this way: (Please click to enlarge)
After everyone was done coloring and drawing, I asked the students to look at the colorful and big poster in front of the classroom. "What types of jobs do you see on this poster?" I asked the students. Immediately, all of their hands went up, waving furiously in the air. I picked on ten students and wrote down their answers on the board:
Jobs in a community:
- Policeman
- Teacher
- Taxi Driver
- Chef
- The "Hot Dog Guy"
- The lady that sells flowers
- Mayor
- The "Meat Man" (butcher)
- Librarian
- Fireman
I then asked the students "Why do we need these types of jobs in our community?" Once again, all of their hands shot up in the air and I received answers like, "because we need somebody to protect us when our house catches on fire", "because we need to borrow books from the library", "because we need someone to cook for us" and much more. One answer that really caught my attention was by Emily M., "If we were sleeping in our bed during night time, and someone comes in and wants to shoot us in the head, then we need the police to come and save us so that we wouldn't be dead."
Ten minutes later, everyone was still raising their hands because they want to continue expanding my question about why we need different types of jobs in our community. Even though I loved the fact that the students are all actively participating on this one topic, time is short, so I had to move on to the next question. "Do you know someone who does any type of work that we've just talked about?" In this classroom, most of the students have families who are policemen or retired firemen.
"I would like for all of you to tell me what you would like to be when you grow up", I was eager to hear what the students would say, "Let's start with you, Asdrubal. Now, remember, if you do not know what you would like to be yet, don't worry. You still have plenty of time to figure that out!" Mostly everyone wanted to be a teacher or a police officer. I remember Joseph wants to continue his family business and work at Lucky Martin's (I have no idea what that is). I also remember Devon (an ESE student) wants to work at Burger King. Now, to my audience, do you still remember Dylan? He is a student that, according to the teacher, is a mental and uncontrollable problem child. He excitedly told me that he wants to become a preacher when he grows up. I was very excited to hear that. When it was Lewis's turn, he stayed quiet. I asked him if he wants to provide an answer, he shook his head. I smiled and said, "That's okay, you don't have to answer." I wanted all the students to feel that I am not pressuring them to do anything for me.
I ended my first activity by passing out the "How does a Community Work?" worksheets for all students and I also gave them business stickers for them to match on their worksheets. They really seemed to enjoy this activity.
Meanwhile, as I was preparing for our next activity, Dylan came to me, rubbing his chest, sadly said to me, "Ms. Wynee, this part hurts." I was about to ask him how much does it hurt when Ms. (teacher) yelled, "Dylan! What are you doing out of your seat? You know you're supposed to stay in your seat! Now go back to your desk and sit down!" I did not think this was a great way to speak to a child. We, as adults and educators need to show respect to children in order to gain respect from them.
9:30AM - 10:15AM (Production)
"Before we get started on our second activity, I would like for everyone to stand up." All the children cheered and jumped up from their seats. I could tell they were extremely eager to stand up. From what I infer so far, the teacher keeps the children in their seats all day long. Personally, I wouldn't want to sit in the same chair for hours and hours. "Okay, now everyone wiggle your fingers. . . Stretch your arms out. . . Shake your body, shake it all out." I had everyone shaking like crazy. "Ok, take your seats." All the children seemed refreshed and ready to begin the new activity.
"Who likes donuts?" This question seemed to set the whole class on fire because everyone was excited and jumping out of their seats with their hands raised. "Has anyone ever made donuts before?" I asked out of curiousity. Amy raised her hand, so I asked her to share her donut making experience. "My cousin works at a donut store and one time I helped her make donuts. We used eggs and milk and other things." I thanked Amy for her generousity to share that experience with us and asked with a grin, "What if I tell you that we will be making pretend donuts today?" Well, you probably guessed what happened next. Yes, you've got it, everyone's face lit up with excitement. I'm glad my anticipatory set worked like magic.
First, I showed everyone how to make a pretend donut. I showed everyone the donut sheets and the three ingredient sticker sheets, which contained flour, milk and eggs. "We will first take a donut sheet, turn it around and MIX the ingredient by putting one flour sticker, one milk sticker and one egg sticker on the back of the donut sheet. Then we will SHAPE the donut by popping the round donut out from the sheet. After that process, we will FLAVOR the donuts by coloring them with any colored crayon. But remember, your donut has to be neat in order to pass the inspection by the inspector."I previously made some defect "donuts" so I can let students see what types of donuts are unacceptable. Giving visual examples will give students an understanding of what their teacher expects from them and will definitely help visual learners. I explained that a defect is when something is not made correctly and showed every student my examples. I made a donut that lacked ingredients, a donut that was colored out of the lines, a donut that hadn't been popped out from the sheet and an acceptable donut. All of the students were able to recognize quickly why a donut is either acceptable or unacceptable.
"Now, I will break you into 4 teams, each team will go one by one because it is hard for me to help you if you are all having trouble making donuts at the same time. We will look at two different types of productions, one is unit production, which one person makes something by himself. The other type is called assembly-line production, which several workers make something, each doing a special part. There will be 2 teams for unit production and 2 teams for assembly-line production. At the end of this activity, we will see which type of production is better." I also made sure to write the two key terms on the board.
As I was planning this activity, I took part of the teacher's advice when I spoke with her during the pre-planning session. She informed me, "I wouldn't break them into groups because they haven't really worked in groups this semester, so I would pick out a few volunteers to perform the task and have the others watch." Since I wanted everyone to participate, I decided to break the class into teams and let each team participate one after another. This is a really bad idea, I'd forgotten that children around this age are impatient and have a short attention span. But we all learn from our mistakes, so let me share mine. These are my four teams:
TEAM 1 - Unit Production
- Emily B.
- Steven
- Grace
- Ben
- Allie
Inspector: LaVonne
TEAM 2 - Unit Production
- Humphrey
- Brianna
- Amy
- Asdrubal
- Kevin
TEAM 3 - Assembly-line Production
- Joseph - put flour sticker behind donut, pass to Franklin
- Franklin - put milk sticker behind donut, pass to Gabriela
- Gabriela - put egg sticker behind donut, pass to Courtney
- Courtney - pop donut out from the sheet, pass to Christian
- Christian - flavor donut by coloring it neatly but as quick as possible
TEAM 4 - Assembly-line Production
- Emily M. - put flour sticker behind donut, pass to Dylan
- Dylan - put milk sticker behind donut, pass to Devon
- Devon - put egg sticker behind donut, pass to LaVonne
- LaVonne - pop donut out from the sheet, pass to Lewis
- Lewis - flavor donut by coloring it neatly but as quick as possible
Inspector: Cameron (Told me that she'd rather be my inspector than to make donuts)
Before I passed out the materials to Team 1, I explained the directions again. I informed the team that their mission is to make as many donuts as possible within 2 minutes, BY THEMSELVES, with the least amount of defects as possible. Christian from Team 2 began to cry, "I want to make donuts, too." Many other students groaned and started to be upset as well. "Don't worry, you are all going to have a chance to make donuts, ok? Right now, Team 1 goes first, you will have to wait for your team's turn." I passed out some materials to each student at TEAM 1, each child received: a crayon, 10 donut sheets, 1 flour sticker sheet (contains 20 stickers), 1 egg sticker sheet (contains 20 stickers) and 1 milk sticker sheet (contains 20 stickers). I briefly went over the directions once more before I said, "Ready, set, go!" and pressed the start button on my stopwatch.
As soon as I looked up, I saw Christian taking Allie's materials and trying to make donuts. "Christian, you will get your turn, just wait patiently. Now please give Allie back her materials." As Team 1 worked on their donuts, all of the other students sighed and whined. They seemed really bored. Once 2 minutes were up, I asked the inspector to count the total donuts their team made (incomplete donuts count), count the defects, and subtract the defects from the total donuts to get acceptable donuts. I recorded the results on the board. I repeated these steps with the other three teams. The only difference is that for teams 3 and 4, I walked through each child's role with them for the assembly-line production and performed a demonstration. Dylan was in Team 4, I asked him to take Cameron's seat and be the milk sticker person, he asked if he could be the colorer. I was just about to answer when Ms. (teacher) said, "Dylan, you don't get a choice, you either be the sticker person or you can not participate at all." So Dylan sat down quietly and took the role of the milk sticker person.
Now, this is where the lesson goes wrong. Being in Team 1 was a lot of pressure, because the team is going first. After their two minutes were up, Steven, an ESL student, began sobbing quietly. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied in a broken voice, " . . .(sniff) be..because my . . .my donuts are not . . .good (sniff) enough." I whispered back, "Steven, there is no need to cry. We are just all having fun together, right? So please don't cry over a donut and I don't care about those donuts, ok?" "Okay." Steven answered. Right when I finished, Courtney said, "Yea, Steven, don't cry. We don't care about the donuts!" Then she shrugged her shoulders and smiled at Steven. Obviously she was listening to me. After this problem, whoever was putting on the stickers in Team 3, did not put them on neatly behind the donut, resulting the stickers to stick out from behind the donut. So most of their donuts were defects. (You probably could guess how they reacted about that) And in Team 4, whoever that was coloring took a very long time. Most of their donuts were also defects. This was the end result:
As I looked up at my results, I realized that the chart basically defeated my purpose to teach this lesson. My goal was to get children to realize that it is better to work together as a team than to work by oneself. I became very frustrated because I really could not think of anything to say. So I looked at Ms. (teacher), she was doing some paperwork. I walked over to her and whispered, "Ms. (teacher), the chart I have on the board defeats the purpose of this whole lesson, assembly-line production results SHOULD have came out better than the unit productions." She looked at the teams and replied back, "Well, I guess it just depends on who you have in a team." That was all she said to me. That's it? You're not going to help me out? I screamed in my head. I wanted to quit right then and there. I walked back to the front and said, "Ok, everyone, my purpose for this lesson was to get you all to understand that working together as a team is better than working alone. But as you can see on this chart, the results said otherwise and this really just defeated my whole purpose of teaching this lesson." After I said this, then Ms. (teacher) stood up from her seat and began explaining to her students that if everyone in a team is on the same level, then the assembly-line production would've gone better. So, there you go, lesson failed.
10:15AM - 10:30AM (Snack Time)
Finally, a snack break. I walked around and gave each child munchkins that I bought earlier in the morning. Everyone thanked me as they ate their donuts. I was a little frustrated during snack time, because when one child asks, "Can we have seconds?", the next child will ask the same question, then the next child, and so on and so forth. It was very tiring to answer "yes, you may" ten times in a row.
10:30AM - 11:15AM (Role of Government)
After snack time, I asked the children to stand up and stretch again. I briefly went over our previous activities and I asked them, "How do you think the workers at the donut shops get paid? Where does the money come from?" Everybody answered that the money comes from the people who buy donuts and the workers' boss pays the workers. Smart cookies. I told them that a regular worker sells something and gets paid with a portion of that money. To encourage thinking I asked, "Who do you think pays Ms. (teacher)?" Courtney answered, "Mrs. Reeds (Assistant Principle)", Gabriela answered, "Mrs. Watts (Principle)", and Ben answered, "The mayor". I asked if Ms. (teacher) sells anything, everyone said no. "Do you come to school everyday and say, 'here, Ms. (teacher), here's 100 dollars for you to teach me'?" Ms. (teacher) interrupted at this point and said out loud, "They SHOULD be paying me." Everyone laughed and I continued to explain, "Ms. (teacher) isn't selling anything, right?" Everyone nodded, "she gets paid by the government. The government is a group of people who manages our city and state. Now where do you think the government gets the money to pay teachers like Ms. (teacher)?" I don't know how Dylan knew the answer, but he answered "taxes." "Good job, Dylan. Yes, everyone, the government gets the money to pay goverment workers by collecting taxes. Taxes are a portion of money that everyone has to pay so we can all benefit from services. Now please look at the poster in front, can anyone spot any other governement workers? Remember, government workers provide services, they don't sell anything." Mostly everyone raised their hands, I put the answers that the students said on the board and I went over them one by one by asking them questions like, "Somebody said a coffee shop worker is a type of government worker, does everyone agree with that? And please tell me why you agree or disagree". Then I would get responses like, "No, because the coffee shop worker is selling something."
After I listed all 8 government workers from the poster onto the board, I told the students that I need 8 volunteers to play the roles of the governement workers. Literally everybody wanted to come to the front of the room, the students that were not chosen seemed very upset. I assigned each of the students that were in front with me a badge. Each badge labeled a government worker title, for example, fireman, teacher, librarian, soldier, tax collector, etc... I told the rest of the students that were sitting down that they are all workers for the Sweet O'Donuts Shop and today is pay day! " Everybody cheered with so much excitement that Ms. (teacher) raised her voice and told everyone to be quiet. "Okay, children, I am the owner of Sweet O'Donuts and I'm going to pay you each $5 today." So I walked around the room and gave $5 (Junior Achievement Money) to each child. The government workers in the front of the room were really antsy because they want to get paid as well. "My donut shop workers, you should all have $5. Now it's time to pay your taxes. The tax collector will come around and collect $2 worth of taxes, and he will then give all of your tax money to the government, which is Ms. (teacher). So everybody give Joseph $2 when he comes around." Joseph, proudly to be the tax collector, collected $2 from everyone and gave the money to Ms. teacher. "Now, I am going to play the role of the government because Ms. (teacher) is very busy, so I am going to pay my government workers because today is their pay day, too." I gave each government worker $5, also. I then asked everyone if they think that government workers should pay taxes, too. Most of the response was "yes". When I asked why, Emily B. answered, "because you said everyone has to pay taxes." I agreed with her and added, "yes, everyone, including the government workers have to pay taxes so we can all benefit from the same services." Once again, I signaled my tax collector to collect the taxes and bring them to me. The children were very excited to hear that they could take their $3 home.
I asked the government workers to take their seats. Then I ended this activity by passing out government worker stickers for everybody so they could match them on their worksheets. During this time, Gabriela came up to me with her right hand on her tummy, "Ms. Wynee, I don't feel good." "Do you want to go see the nurse?" I asked. Before Gabriela could even answer, Ms. (teacher) came and ordered Gabriela to go back to her seat and stop whining. "They always do that", the teacher said to me, "when someone new comes in the classroom, they all pretend to get sick." But I was very concerned about Gabriela. To me, she really looked like she didn't feel good. But I am not her teacher, Ms. (teacher) is.
11:15Am - 12:00PM (Specials)
As the children left the classroom to go to P.E., they all waved at me and told me that they will see me when they get back. During this time, Mrs. (assistant) came in and began to gossip with Ms. (teacher) once again. I took this time to set up for the fourth activity. After I had set up, I asked Ms. (teacher) if she could read a book like she normally does from 12PM to 12:20PM before the children go to lunch, because I would like to take a break. I walked around the room to pick up the trash that was on the floor from the donut activity, and I decided to look at each child's decorated name tag. Emily B.'s name tag caught my attention. On the back of her name tag, she drew a picture of her and I holding hands, smiling under the sun. What a sweetheart.
Dylan's name tag was very interesting too, it had dogs running on the grass, the sky was gray, and there were black crosses all over the place. It looks like this:
Now, this was very interesting to me because I cannot interpret what it means. Hopefully somebody can help me with it.
After I looked at all of the name tags, I wanted to speak with Ms. (teacher) about my performance and see if she could give me any feedback. All she told me was, "You're doing fine." Then she went back to gosipping with Mrs. (assistant). That was when I finally realized that the teacher does not like me.
12:00PM - 12:20PM (Read Aloud)
A few minutes after Ms. (teacher) left and picked the children up, I heard her yelling. She was furious at the children because they were not behaving properly. I believe that there are plenty of other ways to discipline children besides yelling. For the short 20 minutes, the teacher read a chapter book to the students. The book was about a "hobo" (homeless person).
12:20PM - 12:50 (Lunch)
As we were walking to lunch, Devon held my hand (he was the boy that asked me to eat lunch with him last time I visited. Emily B. asked me to sit next to her, then Brianna said I should sit next to her, the next thing you know, everybody wanted me to sit next to him or her. I informed everyone that it does not matter where I sit because we'll all be sitting together on the same table so there is no need to fight. After I received my lunch, I sat down at an open spot at the designated class table, I sat beside Cameron and LaVonn, with Grace, Courtney and Brianna sitting exactly across from me. I felt horrible when Emily B. began to cry just because I didn't sit next to her. I didn't know what to do, all I could do is tell her that we could still talk to each other from where we are both sitting.
Lunch seemed very long to me. I couldn't finish my sandwich just because I had to try and answer 21 different questions and listen to 21 different stories one after another. I was very frustrated about this situation as well.
I noticed that Gabriela had her head on the table and was not eating at all. I asked her if she was still feeling sick, and she said, "yes". I told her, "When Ms. (teacher) comes back to pick us up, we'll tell her that you feel sick so you can go see the nurse, ok? Now try and eat something." So she did.
12:50PM - 1:15PM (Recess)
As we went to the playground for recess, everybody grabbed me and dragged me so I could play with them. Ms. (teacher) had to come and yell, "That's enough! She is not playing with you! Now go play or else we'll go back to our room and read! You choose!"
As I sat with Ms. (teacher) on the picnic table by the playground, I explained to Ms. (teacher) about Gabriela's situation, "She barely ate anything at all". The teacher shrugged off my words, "Oh, like I said, don't worry, the children will do that and they will try to get attention." Just as we were speaking about this, Gabriela came to Ms. (teacher), clutching her tummy, "I want to puke", she said. The teacher looked her Gabriela and ordered, "Go play!" Doesn't the teacher get the hint that maybe this girl is really sick and really wants to puke?1:15PM - 2:00PM
When we came back to the room, I asked the students what choices or decisions they made today. I explained that a decision is to make a choice or to be able to pick from more than one.Humphrey answered, "I made a decision to make donuts." Amy said that her decision was that, "to be here with Ms. Wynee". Courtney answered, "My decision is that teachers can be nice, too." After praising everyone for their answers, I provided more examples, "What about lunch? I saw some of you making a decision to eat yogurt, some of you chose mac & cheese, and some of you chose to eat a sandwich. When you make a choice, you are making a decision. We make decisions every single day, so it is important to pay attention to this activity."I asked the students to pretend that they live in the community shown on the poster. I encouraged the students to look at the poster and find an empty store. After they had found the empty store, I explained, "In our community, there are three people that want to be mayor. Each person running for mayor wants to bring a different business to the community, which would fill the empty store." I pointed to the Decision Tree poster and explained that we have to follow the steps and decide on what is the decision to be made, what are the choices, and list the positives and negatives for each choice. This is how our Decision Tree came out to be. (I will type the students' responses in red. Please click to enlarge.)
After we listed the positives and negatives of each choice. I passed out ballots to each student and ask them to vote for a mayor. I reminded them that they can only choose 1 mayor, that no answer is right or wrong, and that they have to make their choice by what they think is best for the community.
Our winning mayor was . . .Mayor 1 that wanted a toy store! Apparantly, a lot of the children chose the toy store because they felt that the toy store would have the least violence out of the three. I reminded them that the way they made decisions today will help them think about their choices and make better decisions. I ended this activity by passing out "I Voted!" stickers.
2:00PM - 2:45PM (Money Moves)
It has been a very long day for me and I could not wait to get the last activity over with. Before we began, I asked the children to stand up and stretch out again. I first explained what a bank and money is. Next, I passed out the Money Moves worksheet to everybody. Then I asked for 8 volunteers to go up to the front and stand in an oval shape. Since this was the last volunteering opportunity, many students were upset that I didn't choose them. I gave a quarter to Grace told her she was first. I explained to them that they have to demonstrate the circular flow of money by passing the quarter in unison with the lyrics of the tape that I will be playing.
Shortly after I pressed the play button, a catchy rap song about the cycle of a quarter began. The 8 children in the front began to pass the quarter everytime it moves in the lyrics of the song, while they were dancing and jumping around. The rest of the children were very disappointed to see their classmates dancing in the front and having a great time while they were sitting down in their boring seats. After the song finished, I sent the children in front back to their seats and explained that I will play the song once more, and as everyone listen to the lyrics this time, they should use their pencils to trace the quarter's path through the community.
This was the end of the last activity. Each child received their Certificate of Achievement which Junior Achievement provided. I passed out some postcards with some motivational stickers for students to take home, I encouraged them to share their experience today with their families. "I really enjoyed being here with you all today. As a matter of fact, since we have 15 minutes left, let's play a game of 'Simon Says', and I have some coloring books for prizes." The excitement in the room was unexplainable.
During our game, Gabriela threw up. If the teacher showed more concern for this child earlier when the child constantly reminded us that she did not feel good, then this would not have happened. These children all have such great listening skills, that I had to finish the game with 4 winners. I gave the 4 children coloring books. Courtney told me that she didn't like her coloring book, then Allie came to me also and said the same thing. I was suggesting to them that maybe they should switch when Ms. (teacher) lectured them, "You either take the coloring book or you don't take it. She specifically went out and bought them for you. You should just take your coloring books, say 'thank you', turn around and sit down!"
As I was about to leave, everyone came and hugged me. The first one that came to me was Dylan. He thanked me and asked me if I was coming back the next day. I responded, "No, not tomorrow, but I will come back sometime during this year, ok?" Now that was a promise.
Reflection
I realized today that the way you treat a child will affect the way he/she participate and socialize in the classroom. For example, Ms. (teacher) was always putting Dylan down, yelling at him, and always criticizing about him in front of his peers. His classmates know that the teacher doesn't like Dylan, so they give Dylan a hard time also because nobody wants to be against their teacher. The isolation, the embarrassment and the negative attitudes has molded this child into a very anti-social and disruptive student for Ms. (teacher), but not for me. Dylan actively participated in all of my activites, he listened carefully to directions and he is a very bright child. I believe teachers should treat all children equally, give them the same attention and not discriminate against anybody. Teachers should not expect students to give them respect, when they don't even respect the students.
An effective teacher also listens to his/her students. If my students tell me that they feel sick, I will immediately send them to the nurse instead of accusing them of lying. I also believe that there are other ways to keep children quiet instead of yelling at them. When the children talked while I was talking, I stopped what I was doing and just looked at them silently. They immediately stopped talking and gave me their full attention again.
This was a great experience for me because it allowed me to experience how it feels to teach a whole day (It was very tiring), it allowed me to learn from the teacher's negativity, it reminded me how much I love kids and gave me more reasons why I should become a teacher so I could lead our youths into successful lives.
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