First Day in Placement- Journal 1

After your first day in your classroom, write a vivid description of your school and classroom. What is the neighborhood like?  What do you see when you walk in the school building? Describe the cultures, languages, and other sociocultural characteristics of the students in the classroom in which you are tutoring. How do you feel being here?  Is this environment like or unlike your own K-12 schooling experience?

Pulling into the parking lot at Pleasant View Elementary School frightened me a little bit. I could see the school. It looked grey and dull. All the windows had metal bars on them and were all covered so no one could see in or out of the classrooms. Growing up, I had been to school in three different countries and been to twelve schools but the bars on the windows still scared me and made me think this school might not be safe.

The neighborhood this school is in is not bad or unsafe, though. The school is just a couple minutes away from lots of houses that seem safe. The school is only about five minutes away from my dorm at Rhode Island College and I feel safe in my dorm that’s so close to this school. The school feels safe once inside but based on just the outside of the school, it does not look like the safest school.

Walking into the school was very confusing. After signing in with the office, I walked into the lunch room and saw five different hallways that were all labeled with a letter. The lunch room was loud and had hundreds of college flags hanging around it. I have always wondered if these are the colleges the teachers who work at the school went to but I have never asked. I went to many different schools but I never went to a school where you walk in and you are immediately in the lunchroom and it feels weird to me no matter how many times I go to the school. When I walked into the lunch room, it was lunch time for grades three to five and I noticed a good amount of kids in electric wheelchairs or normal wheelchairs. I did not expect this school to be so inclusive for kids with special needs but it was a really nice surprise seeing how inclusive it was. The hallways are not organized by grade level or anything like that and that was really confusing for me at first. The kindergarten classroom I help out in is in the ‘D’ hallway and whenever the teacher calls on the class or wants their attention she says, “D4”. It surprised me that teachers at this school calls the class by their room number.

The classroom I am in is really nice. It has lots of color and decorations and feels like a welcoming environment. There are five different tables for students to work at and there’s a nice big rug where everyone has an assigned spot. Every student speaks english in the classroom. I feel comfortable in the class and I really like it so far.