January 11, 2022 (9:20am-4pm)
I spent today in two different classrooms, first in Katie Emerson’s room and then in Shannon LaTourelle’s room. The teachers were notified last night that classes were going to be moving to distanced learning starting tomorrow (1/12). Today was very busy and I spent time in 3 of the 4 2nd grade rooms helping allocate papers, make and label folders, and help tape usernames and passwords to everyone’s ipads. The teachers communicated a lot throughout the day to each other on how they were going about teaching the kids how to login and what programs they were all including for at home. During lunch I sat in with them and this is when they created the slide show with the schedule for the next 7 days online. They spent time thinking about wording and if they would share end-times for activities.
One student was crying throughout the day. At one point it was because of a drawing assignment; they asked me for help with a drawing so I showed an example and then suggested they try. This made them angry and they shouted at me to do it all for them. I wasn’t totally sure how to respond and the teacher jumped in before I really had to. Whenever students cry or become upset I have noticed that I internally feel upset or emotional and am quite sensitive to it. It is interesting to see how teachers respond to it and for the most part teachers seem to mostly ignore it and let the child self soothe. I am curious if this is something that is taught or more so a response to past experiences.