Final Blog Post!

It is hard to believe that my time teaching in the Summer Learning Place is just about finished. My experience at the SLP has been both frustrating and wonderful at the same time.  I was initially very excited about teaching a different group of children than I was used to and was looking forward to working with my co-teacher Leane.  However, my excitement quickly faded when I realized our children were not the most well behaved students in the program.  My excitement was pretty much nonexistent when I realized that I had no experience dealing with the types of behaviors that these students were exhibiting in our classroom.  Good thing I had a fabulous co teacher full of great ideas by my side.  

Despite the troubles we were facing, Leane and I did not throw in the towel!  We thought about all we had learned during our time at Furman.  We collaborated with our peers, and discovered strategies which helped to alleviate some of our behavior problems.  We had good days, and we had bad days.  But at the end of all of our days, I was delighted to see that most of our students had met or exceeded their SLP goals.  Seeing the post assessment results really made the entire experience worthwhile. 

I do not believe that I will quit my current teaching job and seek out a class more like the one I had at the SLP.  This experience definitely made me realize that I am pretty happy where I am at, and if anything my time at the SLP has reaffirmed my love for my own students.