Last thoughts about my placement this semester.....

(Caution: might be a bit cheesey)

Above is a representative of my students that I worked with this semester. They differ individually by personally, talents, abilities, and more. In the last few weeks I have caught myself observing and appreciating their different sense of humor and mannerisms. Realizing their interesting traits and qualities has caused me to become sad because I will miss them when I leave. And because they are in fifth grade there isn’t even a possibility that I will see them in the halls of the school next semester because they will be moving to middle school. In the past I have always been in lower grades and I have been able to go back and visit to get my “fix” when I started to miss them. I have learned so many valuable things from my students this semester. One is that 5^th graders really aren’t that scary after all. For the most part my experience is with the lower grades of elementary school, so when I found out in the beginning of the semester that I was in fifth grade I thought they would act like middle school kids, but they aren’t. They still have their innocence and sweetness, really not that intimidating at all. I have also learned from my students that flexibility and honesty is very important. When things didn’t go right they were able to sense if I was frustrated or stressed, so with honesty I was able to tell them how I was feeling and how I felt the lesson was going so that we could work to improve the current situation. This honesty also helped me gain respect with my students. I am so sad that this week is our official last week in the schools.