Understanding Emotions

As I continue my journey as a student teacher, I am finding emotions to be a critical piece of becoming a successful teacher in both classroom management and instruction.

I am placed in an under performing school in North Philadelphia. The community is struggling and is plagued with social ills from unemployment to drug trafficking. When students enter the classroom, it is difficult not to think about their homes, community, and how they are experiencing their world. I am fortunate to have a great classroom mentor (CM) - the teacher you work with at your placement - as she has an uncanny ability to take moments of misbehavior and turn them into opportunities to connect with students at a more personal level and assist them.

The students in my placement are slowly individually finding emotional support from my CM. All children need emotional support, but I believe the context of urban schooling presents greater complexity and importance for serving as a emotional outlet for children. It also shows how, as teachers, we must not look at the profession as instilling knowledge effectively but as a holistic effort where we nurture and develop the moral, social, and intellectual growth of students.

To give an example to my observation, a child was being disruptive all morning. When the children returned from lunch the child was cussing openly and being disorderly. I intervened and gave the child an opportunity to gather himself. We return with the rest of the class but his behavior did not change. I talked to my CM and we pulled him from his elective, Computers. We talked to him individually and learned that he had not taken his medication and was having issues at home. We talked about his responsibilities and possible solutions. The conversation ended positive and we gained a greater understanding to his emotional state.

Situations like these are hard to endure but are reminders, at least to me, of the importance of teaching in urban communities.