4th visit: October 18, 2007

I mentioned in a previous report that the teacher of this class passes out fake dollars as a reward system. Today, one student asked how much it would be if they were to get ice cream with the fake money. The teacher answered 40. I just thought that teachers (and parents) really shouldn’t reward children with food. Instead of food, she could reward them with a prize of an object of some sort like a magnet or such. Every time the teacher yelled, the kids still ignored her. Maybe yelling isn’t so effective. Today, she taught the same lessons that I’ve been observing in my past visits. I’m sure this is because I come in the same day and time each week. The class first had to do silent reading for 10 minutes. Afterwards, they did some math and reading later with the teacher. This time for Math, they learned adding and subtracting money. They used number lines as the strategy for adding and subtracting. Ms. Chippis uses the overhead instead of the blackboard to teach the math lesson. I don’t know why she chooses that method. I’m going to have to ask her. The teacher tells the kids not to erase anything in their Math workbooks, but I still see them erasing and making corrections. One girl did a problem on the overhead, and I could see that she got the wrong answer in her addition. The teacher did not notice this until after she completed her number line. The book they are reading with the teacher is Grandpa’s Convenient Store. Ms. Chippis uses a storyboard that is on an easel for her reading lesson. She has columns on this storyboard to write down vocabulary words, predictions of the story, and the students’ thoughts about the story. For homework, each student has to write a summary which should include a beginning, a middle, and the end for the book. Ms. Chippis’ previous students from last year came back just to make a quick hello and to see everyone who was in that day. Having the old students come back to see her is a sign that she is a good teacher. These are the kinds of teachers I want to learn from. Even though the teacher may yell at these kids, it seems that the kids will learn to appreciate the work they have accomplished this year as well as their teacher. I am sure they enjoy their lessons most of the time. One student was out for 3 days because of sickness. I felt badly how he has to catch up on everything now, especially for the Math lessons. One thing I did not mention in my previous journals is that there are bars on the windows of the school building. This probably is to prevent break-ins. A school in the city is a different atmosphere and surroundings than the suburban schools that I went to. At 3:00, I recognized the song on the loudspeaker that they use instead of a bell. It was Beethoven’s Symphony Scherzo #9.