Saturday, October 6, 2007

Volunteer

I volunteered in Teague's class on Thursday. I was only there for 45 minutes, but I learned a lot in that short amount of time.
I helped four children read and one with lower case letter recognition. I absolutely cannot believe what different levels these children are at. Of the four readers, they all did a great job, however, it took one child about 20 seconds to get through a book and it took another about 10 minutes to get through the same one. The other two took about a minute or so. The child that I helped with letter recognition also was amazing I think there were only 3 or 4 letters she wasn't quite sure on. Then Ms. Jana read a Halloween story to the children while we waited for parents to come pick them up. I loved to sit and watch the children. Some really participated in the story a lot. Some just sat there and listened, and of course there are the select couple that are a little disruptive.
My point is this: There are only 12 children in this class. As I was there I was thinking about how hard it must be to cater to each child and the level that they are at, and do a good job at it. I know that Ms. Jana (and Ms. Megan) do a GREAT job, because I have seen the incredible results with both of my kidlets. So, I am so grateful that Aaron and I are fortunate enough to be able to send our kidlets to this school, because I am not sure that my kidlets would be catered to they way they need to be at a public school with 26-32 students per class and one teacher.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure that there are plenty of great public schools with great teachers that can teach appropriately. I am just feeling especially blessed after this experience.

4 comments:

Corinne said...

I remember my elementary school classes having a lot in them too. Sheely has 19 in her public school 2nd grade class this year. And I too, am amazed by the wide range. I did math facts and sight words with kids today to help out and WOW. Teaching is seriously an art :)

Corinne said...

oh, i meant to ask you, is it a charter school or a private school? why did you decide to send your kids there?

Ms. Karlyn said...

It is a private school.

We had to opportunity when Piper was 4 to have her go through the interview process at Sandcastle when her doc told us she needed to start kindergarten and the public system wouldn't even look at her. Since Piper was already a student, Teague was able to get in.

Aaron and I always wanted to send our kids to private school, so when the opportunity came up, we jumped.

Valerie said...

Way to go on spending some time at Piper and Teague's school. I am really thankful for the opportunity I had to do this on a regular basis when Jessica and Jared were in elementary school. It was also interesting to see the differences in the skills of their teachers, let alone the students.