Prompt #1

Thursday the 24th was my first day helping out in Ms. Mara’s classroom. She wanted me to be there for nine so that we could talk for a few minutes before her students came to class. I got lost on the way (Providence is not the best when it comes to signs and lane markings), but I called to let the school know I would only be a few minutes late.

When I was almost there, I noticed that so many of the signs for businesses were in different languages (not just Spanish, either). The neighborhood was pretty run-down; some of the apartment buildings around it were boarded up and many others had unkempt yards.

When I walked in, there were murals on almost every inch of the hallways, along with papers saying positive things that people had noticed about the students’ behavior. I still got to Ms. Mara’s class before her students because first period hadn’t ended yet. I separated some rubrics for the day’s activity while Ms. Mara went out to gather her students.

I worked with two classes of seventh and eighth grade students for two hours and a sixth grade class for a half hour before lunch. The assignment was to finish their scripts for the fairy tales they had been assigned to perform. Before they started, Ms. Mara went over the agenda written on the board and she finished up the lecture from the day before about the idea of “confidence”. Then, all the classes, Ms. Mara, and I did warm-ups to get loose. They broke up into smaller groups to work on their performances. I walked around and asked which fairy tales they were performing and helped out with some ideas for what they could do to pantomime different actions. When all the groups were ready (some actually weren’t completely finished), Ms. Mara said it was performance time. Students sat on the desks (shaped in a U within the class) to watch the shows. The students were graded on a few different things: believability (being serious about the role, not laughing during the performance unless called for), motivation (clearly conveying actions through pantomiming), emotion, and the overall quality of the show.

A few students had trouble remembering that they need to always (in some way) face the audience and some had trouble with pantomiming effectively, but overall the presentations were very good. The second class of the day that I tutored, after their performances were finished, got so excited about their shows that they wanted to perform for the elementary school across the street. Since my first visit, they have started plans for a rendition of “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves”, but they have to change the character names so as not to infringe on copyrights.

Ms. Mara and I walked the sixth graders down to the cafeteria when it was time for lunch and then we went back to the classroom to talk about various things. She really seemed to want to help me get the most out of this tutoring experience. I’m really glad I was placed with Ms. Mara because she genuinely appreciates the help I can give to her students.

I feel that this school values good behavior, but this school is different than others because the staff lets the kids know when they are doing good things instead of just scolding them when they misbehave. Ms. Mara is very strict on punctuality. If a student is late for class, they automatically receive detention and must stay that afternoon unless there is a conflict. I know for a fact that Ms. Mara values creativity. I don’t know of very many teachers, especially in an urban public school, who would deviate from the curriculum they had already planned out in order to foster an idea the students had.

I am so excited to be tutoring for Ms. Mara and her students. They are all very bright and I feel very welcome in the classroom.