Personal Narrative: My Practicum Classroom

I completed my practicum experience at Ellen Hopkins Elementary in Moorhead in a second-grade classroom. Mr. Larson was my cooperating teacher and he taught me more about teaching and relations to students than I think he realizes. The students also taught me every single day new ways to see certain concepts and positive ways to react in situations. I think Mr. Larson was an excellent cooperating teacher who helped me realize and see a classroom through the eyes of a teacher. My favorite component of the classroom was being able to build on what we were learning and discovering in ED 205 and see it first hand in the classroom by making connections between our readings from Ayers into seeing how the readings take place in a real-life context.

Ayers illustrates, “I believe that culture is the frame through which all of us make sense of the world…” (Ayers 73). My practicum classroom was very diverse with the cultures of the students which added a learning advantage. The students could see and learn about others and got the opportunity to build and learn more about themselves based on the students in their class. At Ellen Hopkins, students can be in a Spanish immersion classroom if they wish, which shows how important culture and other languages are important to those in the entire school. Students had the chance to learn a second language fluently as this created an enriched intellectual opportunity because different cultures are so important in development, by creating knowledge of the world like Ayers describes above. Ayers also describes that an environment for learning, “must be thought of as life itself, not simply preparation for later life” (Ayers 74). This idea was mostly expressed during the time shortly before the presidential election. Even though the students were only in second grade, they were all talking about the presidential race and what they knew about each of the candidates. Mr. Larson incorporated certain