I have been observing a first grade classroom at the public school next door to my house. This is a bilingual classroom where the teacher is able to teach in Spanish and English as needed. The students in the classroom speaks 90% or more in Spanish but when they encounter vocabulary in English the teacher makes the transition between languages to help students to understand learning concepts. But I believe that is wonderful for students to learn in their first language while acquiring English as the second language because the ability for students to maintain Spanish as their first language allow them to communicate with their families at the same time with the mainstream.
In the classroom the routine consist
of different type of subjects during the day such as literacy, social studies,
math, science, language, and more. The idea that I love from this host teacher
is how she also integrate different subjects into another making the learning
experience more profound. I had learned a lot of classroom management such as how the host teacher divided the students
into groups so they can learn and support each other, time to complete or
extend activities, consequence of misbehavior, sense of classroom community,
respect, and much more. At last, I had learn teaching strategies that would be
with me during my teaching approach such as using different media to implement activities
so everyone in the classroom would benefit and gain learning skills.
I considered that the challenge that
I encounter related between my topic and the classroom that I observe is that
most of the student are overweight or obesity. I’m not sure if the reason that
most of the students are overweight or obese is cultural oriented or not
because I haven’t found the opportunity to investigate more. I believe that
before I begin to interrogate people or teachers I should be more cultural wise
not to offend parents or the host teacher. Because I considered that the topic
of my research could be offensive if is not well presented. In addition, I had
observed that most of the parents are just obese or overweight as their
children. Furthermore, I had noticed that most of the teachers are also obese
or overweight therefore I considered this topic overwhelming to talk with other
colleagues.
But when talking about that student
just have physical education few days a week for a period of time the host
teacher sounded disappointed making clear that students really need physical
education just as they need any other subject for there development. According to
the host teacher politician makes sometimes makes laws that are senseless
cutting physical education is a big mistakes it could have at school. Because most
students already have a sedentary life at home not all parents have the
opportunity, time, or money to put their kids in sports and these two situations
from school and home fail to give students the physical activities they need to
be healthy adults.
Other topic that we talked was about
the school nutrition. The teacher feel that the food is not the most healthy
ones the school lunch pretty much consist in is pizza, macaroni cheese, BBQ
chicken, cheese burgers, chicken nuggets, etc. the students don’t have a choice,
the lunch is put in a tray for them. Most students eat their lunch because they
don’t have any other option because they don’t bring food from home or at all
due that this is a low income community. In addition, other students don’t eat
because the disconnection between school and their culture food.
At last, I strongly considered
advocating because of the damage we are doing to our future generations by
cutting physical activities, lack of healthy food, and making students believe
that is ok to be overweight or obese. I don’t think that is moral for us
educator to let our students die by not making health and smart decision about
their health. I firmly believe that being overweight or obese equal to diseases.
Let makes our voice be heard that being overweight or obese is not about
fashion is about being healthy and live a healthy life.
