RFE#3- Nicole Stewart

I am currently completing my internship this semester at Underwood Elementary in Ms. Gartz’s fourth grade classroom. Located off of Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh, Underwood Elementary is a Gifted and Talented Magnet school. Underwood Elementary offers its students, of all grades, integrated learning activities including dance, drama, music, French, Spanish, Technology, journalism and others. Ms. Gartz’s class is small and it complied of twenty-two students. Underwood Elementary has a moderately small population as a whole, with approximately five hundred students attending. I feel that having small classroom population, and a small school enrollment, helps to make the sense of community to be more easily built.

Underwood Elementary recognizes that character is an important part of a person. From kindergarten to fifth grade, students enrolled are made aware of the importance of good character traits and their practice. The students are taught to do what is expected, and are made aware that everyone from the principal to teachers, faculty, and staff, expects nothing less than the best from everyone at all times. Students at Underwood Elementary know that their attitude contributes and affects the classroom and school communities. Whether a student is walking down the hall, quietly, with a hall pass, or eating their lunch maturely in the cafeteria, they clearly demonstrate their knowledge of what is expected of them.

By having the students participate in the electives, with grades third through fifth being intertwined, a stronger sense of community is further established. Students are able to form relationships with one another, despite being in different grades. Ms. Gartz is in charge of the Unicorn Times, which is the Underwood Elementary School newspaper. The school mascot is the Unicorn, and can be seen throughout the school. It is common to see at least one student daily wearing the Underwood Elementary t-shirt that has the mascot on it. The students also have folders to keep their work in that has the school logo and unicorn mascot on the front cover. The television also hosts ‘Unicorn’ announcements throughout the day. The mascot is very important to the students, and is a great way for the school as a whole to embrace the sense of community. The announcements vary from the lunch menu to birthday and late buses to schedule changes. The school further creates a community by assigning faculty to greet every student as they enter the school each morning. I have also watched the principle also walks around throughout the day and greets each student she encounters personally.

The sense of a community is further spread upon entering Ms. Gartz’s classroom. As each student enters her classroom in the morning, Ms Gartz greets the child by name. The students then place their backpack and other belongings in their cubby and begin their daily routine. The students then go to their desk and complete morning work. The school bell rings and the students stand behind their desk and say the Pledge with Ms. Gartz then do stretches, deep breathing and share any interesting news with the class. Ms. Gartz told my partner and I that she read studies and reports on how deep breathing helps children to transition from home life to their school career, as well as help oxygen get to the brain to make students feel more relaxed and adapt to learning subjects being presented to them. Throughout the day, Ms. Gartz has her students to work together in groups, and pairs students who typically do not work with one another together. When I observed her class on Tuesday, she publicly told her students that she wanted them to be sure to work with someone new when they played their math game to better their classroom community.

The benefits that are encompassed when the sense of community is established, extends from a teacher and her classroom to the school as a whole and the surrounding community, itself. Classroom communities help students to improve academic and social skills that will impact them throughout their life. As a future teacher, I am expected to teach students so that the can learn and it is my responsibility to create a classroom community that invites students to learn and feel nurtured.