For my 391, 3-week practicum I was lucky enough to be placed in Terrace BC, in a Elementary School, in a Kindergarten class. To say I had a blast and learned more then I thought possible would be an understatement. There really is so much I could comment on and discuss but I do not want to keep you here forever, so what I do want to discuss is what my biggest challenge and biggest success was. Coincidentally or maybe not… my biggest challenge is what turned into my biggest success to take away from this experience. I personally historically just click with kids quickly; I always say I enjoy conversing and being around kids way more then adults. Making connections with these students was my biggest challenge, and my biggest success. The trauma of the students in the class I was in would blow anyone’s mind, as it did mine. I knew going into this school and the demographic that it was that there would be some students with tougher backgrounds, and some sad stories. I knew that. I could have never predicted what 80 percent of this classroom, what these students realities were. I sometimes had to remind myself that these students were just 5 years old because the maturity level of these 5-year-old students was insane, what these kids had seen in their lifetime forced them to grow up so fast. With all that being said, getting these students to trust me, this stranger that had come into their classroom was challenging to say the least. It was a challenge but one I was pretty excited and more then willing to take on. I had multiple approaches that worked for different students, I knew going in with the trauma these students had I didn’t want to push myself on them to hard, I didn’t want to overwhelm them I didn’t think that would be effective. Instead what I did was I let them get to know me, I shared stuff about myself in hopes they would find something about me that they liked honestly. And it worked, some kids loved that I had a dog, there was a set of twins in the class and I told them I was a twin and this was a connection, lots of the class loved Mario Cart and I told them my dads name was Mario, and talked to them about Mario Cart. These little things really helped with them getting comfortable with me. I also planned a lesson about popcorn as one of my first big lessons with them, it was fun they got to eat popcorn at the end, and this made a lot of progress with that connection build. I played with them at gym and at their center time, building Lego, playing marbles, drawing pictures, and it was at this time that I asked them little questions about themselves and let them talk my ear off with stories while I listened with all my attention. It was hard to make a connection with these students, and build that trust with them all in just three weeks time, and I am really proud to say that I think I did it. By the last week the students were giving me hugs, they were asking me to play with them, and on the last day so many students came up to me telling me they were really going to miss me. Which was incredibly sad and boke my heart, but also told me that I did it, I was able to build a connection with these students by the end of it all. I was so sad to leave the students, and my incredible coaching teacher whom I cannot praise enough for teaching me so much in such a short period of time. This practicum experience was really so amazing and I would not trade the experience for anything.
