Wednesday, January 15, 2014

My First Day of Student Teaching

Monday was my first full day as a student teacher at CVIS. The night before I kept waking up due to the same combination of excitement and nerves I used to get before my first day of school as a student—except this time when I woke up and went to school as a teacher! At first when my alarm went off I thought it had gone haywire, after all the sky was pitch-black and full of stars. But the sky stayed black until 7:00 am, which made for a nice walk to the school as the sun rose.

A view of the entrance to CVIS



Because all of the teachers wear polo shirts with the school logo, Kathy made sure we each had one before we left our orientation on Friday. As a result, Cynhia, Erin, Alyssa and I showed up at school in matching royal blue polo shirts, complete with a CVIS school logo etched on the left. Although it was dorky, we kind of liked it—at first. We even had Kathy take a picture of us in front of the school to document our first day. But, throughout the day my attitude towards the polo began to change. Our polos are royal blue. This is the same color as the secondary students’ polos. I was aware of this when we got them, but didn’t realize the other teachers would be wearing a different color. The discrepancy resulted in some awkward interactions throughout the day. The first was self-induced. Because I was worried about being mistaken as a 7th, 8th, or 9th grader, I overcompensated by introducing (and re-introducing) myself to any adult-figure I encountered before they could make that assumption. By the end of the day I had almost gotten used to the polo, but was reminded when the four of us walked home. People kept commenting on and questioning us about them. At the grocery store people kept asking if we were student at CVIS, and on the street some guy actually shouted “What’s with the uniforms?” as we walked by. Needless to say, I was happy to get home and take my polo off. On the bright side, at least we don’t have to wear them everyday!   

The four of us in our matching polos!

Aside from the polos my first day was pretty amazing. Overall, 25% of students are international students, and the remaining 75% are from Mexico.  This goes against the false stereotype in the community that CVIS is a “gringo” school. I am really amazed at how talented the students are. Because the school operates under a dual-language immersion model, all students speak (or are learning to speak) two languages. But many students also speak a third language, such as Italian or German. It is amazing to see blonde-haired, blue-eyed children speak with perfect English, and then effortlessly transition into perfect Spanish. It really shows me that this type of model works and should be utilized more often, especially since globalization is making it useful, and almost necessary, to speak more than one language.

However, not all students at CVIS are perfectly bilingual. One challenge Jessica, one of the administrators, mentioned last Friday is that (international) students are constantly coming and going. For example, quite a few students in my classroom started at CVIS within the 1-2 weeks. For many students starting at the school this is their first experience learning either English or Spanish. However, they are fearless in the face of a new language and just go for it. It inspires me because that is the best way to learn and they are doing it. And even when they have doubts or are completely lost and confused, the bilingual students support them. I cannot tell you how many times I heard students effortlessly act as a translator to help out one of their peers. That is another thing that amazes me—how accepting the students are of different ability levels. Whether those ability levels are in oral speaking, reading, math, or any other subject. The students at CVIS truly seem to be a community of supportive learners and friends, which is pretty amazing. I can tell I am going to learn a lot from this experience.


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