Eighth and Final Week at Cornerstone

It’s hard to believe that field is over already!

This past week was fairly abbreviated and more than a little frustrating.

On Monday and Tuesday the class spent the duration of our time there browsing the internet for information about a city of their choosing. Miss Dillon started them on a geography project, for which they were to go on a “virtual vacation.”  They were to research their city and eventually put together a report including information such as what food you would eat or activities you would participate in that location.  While this activity was creative and allowed the students to have a great deal of accountability for their learning process, the logistics of working with the computers are a nightmare.  To begin with, a number of the computers, which are shared by all classes in the school, are broken or dead.  For those who are lucky enough to find a computer that turns on, access to the internet is often denied without a password.  This problem had  Miss Dillion running around the classroom for the first fifteen minutes,  just to get the kids online.  Once they were online, the school’s firewall blocked many of the sights, including Google.  Many students in the class lacked a general understanding of how the internet worked at all.  One girl commented “it don’t tell me nothing about Paris” as though the internet were a single source of information and not a vast network of media.  Others didn’t understand what I meant when I used words such as “cursor” and “search bar.”  These are concepts I feel third graders should understand. Even if there is not a computer available at home, it is imparitive in today’s technology-driven culture that computer literacy be taught in schools. I didn’t have the chance to ask Miss Dillion if there was a computer lab or specific computer classes taught at Cornerstone.

On Wednesday Vicki and I arrived at 1:00 per usual.  The classroom was empty, but we figured that the class was either out for recess or at an assembly. We looked on the  board and on Miss Dillion’s desk but there wasn’t a note indicating their whereabouts.  After about twenty minutes we decided to walk up to the office and ask the secretary if she knew where the class was. She informed us that the ENTIRE school was at the high school for a field trip, and wouldn’t be returning until later that afternoon. Feeling disrespected, we left.

Vicki and I left campus early on Thursday so we could stop at Buehler’s to pick up some treats for the class.  We showed up at 1:00 with cookies and a plant, just to find Miss Dillion missing.  In her palce was a substitute teacher reading the class a story. Of course, “reading” is a relative term, as she seemed to have trouble getting through the complex plot involved in Wild Wild Sunflower Child Anna. It was obvious that the class wasn’t paying attention to the story.  The day proceded as usual until about 2:00 when two of the boys had an altercation in the bathroom.  They both came back with different stories, both involving shoving.  I had them each pull a card in an attempt to maintain order in the classroom.  One student took particular issue with this action, and stormed around the room for a few minutes. I took him into the hall to try to talk to him about why he was so upset, and he proceded to tell me that he was leaving the school, and that I ruined his life. He went on to say that school was stupid, I was stupid, I was evil, and he wished I had never come. I spent the remaining 20 minutes trying to explain that he had to face the consequences for his actions, and that pulling a card wasn’t, in fact, the end of his life.  I eventually got him to stop crying and sent him back in the room, wrote a brief note to Miss Dillon explaining the situation, and bid good riddence to Cornerstone Elementary.

Overall, my eight weeks at Cornerstone were somewhat disappointing. While I had a great group of kids, my teaching experience was extremely limited.  I’m glad to have had the time I did with the kids, and I know the experience will serve me well in the future.