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Senior Internship Experience

Lisa Bjork

The senior internship is a course, along with the senior seminar, that tries to broaden one's focus, as well as one's experience. This is exactly what my course did for me. I faced the issues of classroom reduction, and found that K-3 is only the beginning of the solution to the problems that schools are facing. Then with the Welfare Reform, that is taking place, I find that once again schools are going to be made to pick up the bill. Any time that children are affected drastically, so are the schools. They go hand in hand. But this is not all that I have learned from my course.

I decided to do my internship at George W. Eisenhut School, in Modesto, California. While at this location, I was able to see the differences between grades, and the differences found in the teaching styles, as well as the children. It was amazing how easy it was to see the differences of each grade level. After getting this experience, I was then placed in a fourth grade classroom for the rest of my term. There I was able to see the effects of a large classroom, and how the teacher was able to control them, without stifling their growth, and learning capabilities.

The class that I was working in consisted of 40 students at certain times of the day. There was barely any room to move between the students. But, still, the classroom moved smoothly. I found that the teacher had to do very little disciplinary tactics. This may have been due to the fact that the children just knew the rules and abided by them out of fear of repercussions. But, I feel that it was something more. The children interacted in their learning environment in order to gain points. These points led to a bonus of extra fun hours during the day. This, and the fact that the children really seemed to enjoy their teacher, made the classroom a blessing to be experienced. The children took to me, like a fish to water. I really enjoyed being in the classroom. Not only did I get to interact with the children, but I was also able to experience what it might be like to be an actual teacher. I corrected work with the children, helped them when they had questions, and even graded and recorded papers in the official books. But, most of all, it reminded me of why I want to be a teacher. Every time I look into the faces of the children around me, sharing my knowledge with them, and having them learn from it, I remember the love of learning, and how I felt as a student going through the grades. After Elementary School, the magic seemed to disappear. By teaching, it all comes back with a different outlook of the same scenario. The gift of knowledge and learning from one another is what I want to give to the children of the future. I want to make a difference in their world, like so many teachers did in mine.