RFE 3

Kayla Cline
ELM 375
3/11/09

Reflection 3
As soon as you walk into the breezeway at the front of Aversboro School you are immediately greeted by the safety monitor. The friendliness and warmth continues as you walk down the hallways at the school. The teachers are always waving and saying hello as I walked down the hall even though they may not know who I am. During the first day at Aversboro I was greeted by a teacher in the hallway and she was so kind and she began to joke around with me. Now every time I see her we always speak and joke which really helps when it is early in the morning and helps to start the day off great. As you walk into Mrs. Jenness’s classroom you are immediately greeted with “hello’s” and sometimes hugs from the students (which really surprised me since I thought 3rd graders would not care as much about Taylor and I since they did not know us very well). Mrs. Jenness is a very bright and bubbly person. She always wants to know how you are doing and what she can help us with. As the students are coming into the classroom Mrs. Jenness greets each student by name. Although Mrs. Jenness is not one of those teachers who calls her students sweetie she does have great relationships with all of her students. They talk to each other as equals and as friends. The students and Mrs. Jenness respect each other and it really creates a warm classroom environment where the students feel comfortable and are able to come to Mrs. Jenness with any problem. It was really exciting to see during our full week of school when the students who had good behavior throughout the past week got to eat lunch in the classroom with Mrs. Jenness. Mrs. Jenness did not look at it as a burden that she was losing her lunch time alone to get work done or to just relax. She really enjoyed talking to the students and was genuinely interested in what they had to say. I think that this really makes a difference in her classroom community. The students really feel comfortable and respect Mrs. Jenness because she respects them. There are very little to no behavioral issues in her class and I think the way she treats her students is the reason why her students are so well behaved. They really care about what Mrs. Jenness thinks. This is like the article about warm demander. Mrs. Jenness expects a lot from her students and she does have to discipline them when necessary but in return they really care about what she thinks and they rarely behave badly. Mrs. Jenness also draws names for classroom jobs and every week the students are assigned jobs within the classroom for the whole week. These jobs give the students a feeling of responsibility and connection to the classroom, truly making the class feel like a community.
The warmth in Mrs. Jenness classroom does not stop after you leave her room, the three other third grade teachers are the nicest people that I have ever encountered at a school. They allowed us into their grade level meetings and were so nice and really explain everything that they were discussing. They treated Taylor and I as equals and that really meant a lot to me. All of the teachers on the third grade level communicate and work great together. The community at Aversboro is so warm and inviting in the classroom, grade level, and throughout the whole school. The only problem that I have seen that does not go along with the school community feeling is that the principal has not once introduced himself to me or anyone from our cohort for that matter. I do not receive the same warm greeting from the principal as I do from all of the other teachers that I have encountered in the school.