Second Observation

February 27- Today's observation was held at a different time. usually my partner and I always go in the morning but today we decided to observe in the afternoon. Mrs. M was not there, so her assistant teacher was in charge of the students. I was very surprised and in a way shocked that the students engaged in play time for that last hour before school ended. I thought that Mrs. M would have the assistant teach a lesson or continue with a lesson, however when we came in the kids were allowed to have "free play time." I was upset because I strongly believe that time is so critical and specially time that should be otherwise devoted to instruction. nevertheless, from what I could observe I noticed that students were very happy and more collaborative, more cooperative with one another than when they usually are in a regular day. In other words, the kids were very nice to each other. For example, usually K is disruptive and sometimes even not nice to his classmates, but today he was whole new person to me. He was so nice and caring when he played with dolls with his other peers including C and S. He was so gentle and endearing, I was very happy to be there to witness this behavior. Another thing I observed was something that is very common from this age group. Play time for these students is revolved around make-believe or pretend play. They pretended they were on a train and they even accomodated the room and the chairs to look like one. It was very very cute. Finally, the assistant teacher gave out a few cards, she gave a red card to J. The response that J gave however was not one that should otherwise be expected. I would imagine that after receiving a red card, the student would be aware that he/she has done something wrong and that sitting out from playtime would make him realize that he/she needs to change that behavior. However J was enjoying himself, he was smiling and laughing and playing by himself. Overall, I saw in today's observation perhaps a new side to these students. Play time really allows them to be their true selves and while it was great to see them laugh and play, I would have wanted them to learn instead.