Saying goodby to your first placement

I gained a lot of experience and respect for elementary teachers, not just art, but all subjects. When students are having a bad day at least in specials I only have them for 40 min and then you get to change to a whole new group. When you’re the classroom teacher you have those kids the whole day and it can be very stressful. I never realized how busy some art teachers are during the day until I had my student teaching experience. When your classes are coming in as the other class is leaving it’s extremely important to be very organized and well prepared. Especially, when some classes are behind in some subjects, because there’s; fieldtrips, spirit rally’s and other functions. This isn’t my strongest point but I feel that I have gained some organizational skills that will be very valuable to my career when I start teaching. I have also learned a lot of techniques to keep kids on task.

I wasn’t very excited to start my student teaching in the elementary; I never wanted to teach elementary art so I didn’t feel that it was going to be the best experience. I was rather scared to teach kindergarten and first grade. BUT I will say after starting to teach I loved the elementary kids. For the most part the students still enjoy class and they always say hello in the hallways. They are so happy and carefree. I wasn’t for sure how much of some lessons students would get but they are such little sponges and retain a lot of information.

Now that time is getting closer an I have told the students that I will be leaving soon the students give me the puppy dog face and tell me they don’t want me to leave. The constant question asked is when are you coming back? Will you be back on (date) for my birthday? It makes me sad to think that my time is running out with them. I have gotten so close to some of the students that its going to be really hard to say goodbye.