During my students teaching I had a good experience. I learned more about being in the classroom during this time. I learned how to handle certain children and how to communicate with parents. I learned a lot about discipline and reward programs. I participated in faculty and grade level meeting, and professional development that was going on in my school.  

            During my student teaching I had one student in particular who had some mental and anger issues. I struggled to help this child. Doing everything I could to do to help her when she got mad. It took work and trial and error to help this child. My teacher said in all the years she has been a teacher and teacher assistant she has never seen a child like this in any way. I tried all kinds of things to help this child from going into a fit. You never knew what was going to bring it on and what was going to happen. This child didn’t have a good home life at all and I know that was part of it. I talked with the guidance counselors and it didn’t seem to help this child. Then my cooperating teacher and I got pathways involved. It seemed to help some days and other days it would not. I finally got through to her one day and told her that I would buy her ice-cream at lunch if she didn’t rip up any of her papers or go into a fit and if she would have a good day. For some reason this worked one day. She was great. She wrote me a note that said, Dear Miss. Richard I’m going to have a good day and try my best.” This made me want to cry and at the end of the day when she had made it through the day I bragged and bragged on her about how good she had been that day. This made me see that you can never give up on a child. When you think nothing else will work and you have tried everything. Something will work. That child doesn't want to feel the way she does. I will never give up on a child. I will not quit till I find something that works for a child in any situation.

            During my students teaching I have picked up some skills that I will used things that my cooperating teacher uses, and I have found some things that I will make sure I never do in my classroom. Also during my student teaching I have come up with a way that I could stay in close communication with my parents. I got my parents email addresses and send out a weekly email to them. The email lets them know what we will be doing each week and things that will be going on in our classroom that week. This gave them the opportunity to contact me anytime that they needed. During my student teaching I was observed by an assistant superintendent of my county. She talked with me about job issues and told me who I needed to contact and that she was glad I would be applying for a job in the county.

            Over all I had a good student teaching experience. I learned to be flexible at all times because you never know what is going to change. I have learned to connect with the parents of my students. I have learned much from this experience here in <st1:State w:st="on">North Carolina</st1:State> and can’t wait to learn more when I student teach in Ireland.