As an Elementary Education major, I have also experienced the torture of sitting through numerous education classes basically learning common sense in the same five classes for the past three years, and will most likely be doing that for the next two. Getting up at 8 am and walking across campus to sit in class for two and a half hours to practice classroom management again may seem a little reluctant.... or a lot. It may seem like this eight hours of class time, and ten hours of working on multiple lesson plans a week is about 90% unnecessary, but I'm here to tell you it's actually not.
A few months ago I was offered an amazing opportunity to work full time as a lead teacher at a preschool. At first, I wasn't sure about it, considering I've been working towards a degree in elementary education, and working with two-year-olds seemed more like a babysitting job. However, as a college student and in desperate need for money I took it.
The first day of work, I was extremely set back to see how wrong I was. I was given an empty room, a huge packet of curriculum, and seven two-year-olds that I was expected to assess thoroughly to advance their knowledge in this stage of learning. Looking through the curriculum, I was surprised to see how much it resembled all the lesson plans I was currently working on for my final exams. There was set dates and times for everything, with little room to be creative, but I had to make it work.
Establishing classroom management, something so unbelievably repetitive in every teaching class I've ever taken, was the most difficult task when starting my new classroom. Who knew a class of two-year-olds would be so hard to control? I have to say all those power-points, creepy classroom films, what seemed like absurd skits, and the many lectures ended up being extremely helpful. My boss was impressed with the way I was able to quickly learn the personalities of each of my students, and manage what some teachers would call the worst class at school, fairly easily.
Working with the "terrible twos" may seem like something no Elementary Education major would want to ever experience, but it is something I would recommend to anyone in that field. Even through all the tears, and all the times I want to slam my head in the wall, there are times where you realize you are making a difference in a child's life, and that's the most amazing feeling ever, and I owe it to my professors, hours of class time, and what I thought to be unreasonable amounts of work. All the hard work and effort has made me finally reach my goal of becoming a full-time teacher, and I can't thank Rowan University enough. Take advantage of your classes, education majors, because you're going to be so relieved of how much inspiration and help it has given you. What seems meaningless now, will save you tremendous amounts of trouble later.
