Today was a great day.  Last semester I had committed to administering 4 lessons to multiple elementary classes at KELSET Elementary in Central Saanich.  This was postponed until January as the timings just wouldn’t work for everyone involved, which brings me to today, the first day of the four lessons. 

I was working with Holly, a fifth year Elementary Education student.  We were to do our first lesson with three different classes at the school.  Holly was very proactive in organizing the timings with all the Teachers, keeping in mind their lunch break and recess.  Having very little experience myself in implementing an entire lesson spanning 50 minutes with grade two children, I really relied on Holly for direction.  She’s going to be a magnificent teacher.  She offered me some very positive critique and also gave me great suggestions, not only relating to today’s classes but also tips for the rest of my pre-service training.   It was nice to see how the students “fondly” remembered her as we walked through the school.  She had completed one of her practicums there the last year.  

My main job in today’s lessons was to Read Aloud the book “My Friend with Autism” which was written specifically for the Canucks Autism Network to engage students with making connections  between the book and their own lives and friends.  I was amazed at how aware these kids were already of Autism.  They gave me three students in their school that they already knew had Autism, one of which happened to be in one of our classes today. 

The first class I read aloud in had a Data Projector which is awesome.  There was no need to hold the book up for everyone to see as it was projected onto the front wall.  I have to admit, I was nervous, but not the nervous that causes my voice to tremble.  I sweat like nothing else.  This I can deal with and endure.  I found it very beneficial to pre-read the book before class as it gave me the chance to formulate questions that I could ask the students.  Something that I will work on and most likely will write down next time as it wasn’t as easy as I had thought to recall them while reading. 

Oh, I forgot to mention that before we read the book Holly lead a discussion about Friends.  Each student, with a partner, was to discuss a strength that one of their friends had.  The discussion highlighted the fact that we are all different.  After this discussion came the reading. 

After reading we created a list on the whiteboard of all the senses that we talked about in the book.  We then created a “Sensory Superhero” who was to help his community in such and such way (students were to come up with creative ways for their Sensory Superhero to utilize their senses to help the community/school).   The first classroom we had students work in PODS, however, this did provide for some exclusion of a few students who simply refused to work as a team member, opting to do their own drawing.  For the next two classes we gave each student their own piece of paper.  This worked much better.  I wonder if this has to do with age?

I’d say most of the students received the lesson well; however, there were a few students who needed a little “kick start”.  One specific boy straight out denounced his distaste for drawing.  I now interject with something that I learned in my ART class from a book that was read to us by our Prof.  in efforts of getting this young boy to draw.  I said “ok, will you do one thing for me then? Put a mark on the paper!”  he looked at me with confusion and said “what do you mean a mark?”.  I could see the gears starting to gain momentum; he was starting to think about what exactly a mark meant.  Great!!!  He decided to make a 2mm dot on the page.  Perfect, this was working exactly as planned.  I then said “thank-you” and picked up his paper and studied it closely, right up to my face making sounds of curiosity.   I then asked the boy to “sign his name”.  Again I received a confused look.  He then got the idea, but instead of his own name he wrote the letter that each of his family member’s names started with, at the end calling THIS his name.  Wow.  I wonder what that means?  Very creative thinking.  Family is obviously important to him.  I then took his paper and proceeded to walk away with it.  He immediately stopped me “what are you doing with that?” he asked.  I told him I really liked his art and was going to show everyone his work as I think they should see it.  He said “no, it’s not finished”, so I returned the paper to him.  As the book that was read to us in Art has suggested, this little boy started drawing like nothing else.  When class ended for recess, this boy stayed behind with another classmate to complete their work. 

I did the same thing again with a few other students.  One didn’t want to draw a person so asked me to do so, and the other just wanted ME to draw the dog he wanted on his paper.  With each request I claimed that I was no good at drawing, however, I did give them something.  For the person, I drew an oddly shaped head with little legs and no arms.  Immediately the response was “THAT’S NOT WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE” and were off to show me what it in fact should look like.  The other boy with the dog he wanted me to draw, I did the same thing.  I drew a stick dog that looked funny.  He too didn’t like what I gave him, but instead of continuing with what I had drawn he simply flipped the page over.  I discovered later on that he did indeed continue with the dog I had drawn.  He added a cape and other things I cannot remember right now.  Regardless of whether or not they continued with what I gave them, the idea was to get them drawing on their own; I think this goal was accomplished. 

All in all this experience was fantastic.  I look forward to the next few lessons. 

After leaving the school I received a Tweet from one of my Professors from last semester asking me to take part in a discussion with the Ministry of Education regarding my personal use of Social Media.  I was also asked if I could share what I’ve done with social media to her EDCI 336 classes, possibly even making a capture of the presentation for future use in her 336 classes.  This is all the information I have currently.  I will be calling her later tonight to discuss the details.