Listless Student List

Now that I have been in my class for five total days, I feel I know all the students so I will try this suggested reflective practice from the syllabus:  From memory, try to list the name of every student in your classroom.  Who do you name first?  Who is forgotten?  What might this tell you about your interactions about certain students?

Because I am posting on the internet, I won’t list all the student’s names, but I was successful in listing all 22 with pen and paper.

The first student that came to mind was “Brad.” Brad sits in front of my desk, is the largest kid in the class, and has one of the largest personalities. I have had time to get to know him because he is near to me and can be a little mischievous, but still has a great personality. He is bright and fairly charismatic at times. He is often singing quietly, or loudly at times, likes to joke, and horse around in line, or whenever he has something up his sleeve. When it comes to academics, when Brad is on, he is on. He is actually the one who came up with the interpretation about the picture from my 8/15/11 post. He is in the advanced math class, enjoys when we read aloud, and can comprehend very well. These qualities, however, only prevail when he is “on,” as a said earlier. Sometimes, Brad can “space out” pretty intensely. Every now and then, I can look at him and tell he has slipped of f to somewhere else in his mind. When that happens, he doesn’t even hear what’s going on. I feel like he may be a child who, even if his grades aren’t great in class, he is bright enough to test well.  He is also a very likeable child that really knows how to use his personality.

I did not leave anyone out, but the last child I listed was Tamia. Tamia is actually a very good student and has a likeable personality. However, she doesn’t have many questions and never looks to be distressed. She is certainly one student I should spend more time with to get to know her. I know she enjoys dancing from what I’ve seen at recess, and she aspires to be 4-H president. That’s all I can really say about her. This tells me I am not spending enough time with her outside, or inside, of class. I have only seen a couple samples of her work because she never raises her hand for help, so I should be checking in more on her and a couple others similar to her.

Speaking of 4-H, elections are coming up soon. Children began to write their speeches for whatever offices they are running for. Most are excited, but pretty laid back about it, but there are a few who are completely stressed about the election. One child was getting very upset while trying to write her speech today when she realized some people were finishing and she only had a couple lines so far. I let her know she shouldn’t worry because the more thought she put into it, the better it would probably be, and she could probably even get her parents to help her point out her good qualities.