My internship takes place in Nubia Leadership Academy. I assist a 1st grade classroom. I interviewed my mentor, 1st grade teacher Laura Smart, and these were her answers to my questions referring to the Great Recession and its impacts.
1. How do you think Nubia Leadership Academy and its educational performance has been affected by the Great Recession?
"It has affected the school's budjet, since it has decreased. We've also ran out of supplies/materials for the class, so teachers have to buy them with their own money. There's been some downsizes, and we have limited resources; have to borrow from other teachers, etc. The district doesn't want to give us any more money for materials or other useful things, so if we ask for any, we get lectured and denials."
2. What is Nubia Leadership Academy's role with the larger economy? How does it participate?
"We prepare students to be productive in society later on in life and to contribute with higher, better performance. We teach kids what's necessary so they can stay on track of securing a better future."
3. How do you think Nubia Leadership Academy participates in the field of education in ways other elementaries do not? What makes it better?
"We're a charter school, so we have more freedom to teach students what they need rather than just what we are told to teach in the teacher's manual. We are able to give students the support and time that they need; we meet their needs in a better way. I think we have more concern about students and their academic potential, so instead of just teaching subjects in general, we adjust to the children's need and learning style more freely."
4. How is Nubia Leadership Academy dealing with the problems of recession?
"We have asked parents to help bring in materials that the students might need, to help with transportations when we're going to fieldtrips, we're saving supplies as long as we can, buying things with our own money, and trying to do our best to 'survive' the downsizes."
My Day
Here I'll give a summary of the activities I did throughout the day.
- I woke up at 6:55 in the morning.
- Had a beef tamal and milk for breakfast. (Not to mention my medicines)
- My parents drove me to my internship site. It took about an hour to get there because we couldn't remember how to get there and we got lost. It went...Sort of chaotic. We were all stressed out, especially Mom, and I was worried of being late in my first day, and wondered how my mentor would react when I finally arrived.
- What I did when I first arrived at my internship site was greet my mentor, who introduced me to her class, and watched how everything was running to start getting a feeling of it. I saw and talked to my mentor and her sixteen, little 1st grade students.
- I work at a...Building. In a classroom. It's, a pretty nice neighborhood, all things considered.
- What I did for lunch was helping my mentor keep track of her students, helping them grab their lunch, and once they were settled, talked business with my mentor for a while and heard her talk with her friend.
- What I did in the afternoon was assist the kids. I went around the room checking if anybody needed help with the assignments my mentor handed out. I passed out papers, answered questions, and even sent a misbehaving, fit-throwing kid out of the classroom to another room when he started acting up. (It was SO...Scary. I was nervous about it)
- I see myself assisting the kids, helping out, reading stories outloud, correcting some work, probably even giving a lecture, or maybe even scolding some kids.
- I feel prepared to pretty much everything, I even feel I might have enough patience to deal with the kids when they're acting up and trying to be funny, but I don't know if I'll handle the 'being stern' part so well. I'm far too nice for that. I hope I can do well on everything, I think I'll be able to round up the kids well and make them better listeners.
- What I will need to succeed in my internship is leadership, teaching skills, how to explain things in a simple way, how to stay in a level the kids can understand, be patient...
- I've always been excited about spending time with little kids, and just wanted to know what teaching them was like. I think little kids are so much easier to handle than older kids.
- What makes me nervous about it is that some kids just won't listen, and I'm not trained enough to make them listen. I might mess up or something, or just teach them or show them things I shouldn't yet, or at all. Mainly controlling the children when they're acting wild, don't want to cooperate, being too loud, or are goofing around.
- I got home pretty late. A little. Since we went to eat after my hours were over, I got home at around 5:30 in the afternoon.
- I did nothing special, just reflect and think back of my first experience today, thought how I could do better the next time, and started gathering some ideas for my project.
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