My Teaching Experience with Elementary

I have one year of teaching experience with Elementary students. This is due in thanks to the Sun Program through Portland Impact at Buckman Elementary. Working with Elementary age children has been one of the most challenging and rewarding accomplishments in my life. Although I’m not exactly sure what my target age group will be, I think I will find success in teaching children.
My beginnings are very humble. While working in the service industry I decided that I should volunteer and that maybe I would be good at working with kids. For some reason I have always enjoyed children. Maybe it’s their youthful spirit that makes feel young again or maybe I am just a big kid at heart. Either way, I decided that I would volunteer and responded to a craigslist ad for the Sun Program. When I began at Buckman I was put in the Homework Club, where the most volunteer help was needed. Although I didn’t know anything about Buckman Elementary, I would learn that it is an arts school. What I found out by volunteering is how much some school s can let kids slip through the cracks. In homework class I helped a child learn how to read, taught many children basic math skills, and even taught two twin kindergartners how to play checkers. Some of the children had been held back a grade once or even twice. I learned a lot from my first five or six months of volunteering, enough so that I wanted to take on more responsibility.
The next project I undertook at Buckman Elementary was the role of an Assistant Teacher with a new teacher, for a class that I would have nearly complete control of all aspects. This proved to be even more exciting and furthered my quest for teaching. The class that I co-created was a class called “Arthropods.” Or more commonly known to most people as the family of invertebrate that include: spiders, bugs, millipedes, and crustaceans. I’ve always loved bugs since I was a child and rationalized that this class would be very popular and fun for the children. Although it was very challenging creating new and exciting curriculum and worksheets for the children, even as an unpaid volunteer, the children’s response to the class was worthwhile for me. I felt very accomplished by the end of the term.
After the summer, I was called back to Buckman Elementary by the Sun Program coordinator to be a paid teacher. It was flattering to be specifically asked to teach, so I accepted the position as a paid after school teacher. I was to create two, one hour classes and have complete control over every aspect. Although I would only be paid for two hours a week, and none for any time spent preparing the curriculum, I knew this would be an invaluable experience. Since I was entering into my third term of Portland Community College’s Elementary Mathematics series of classes, I knew I was going to make one a math class called “Visual Math,” that focused on drawing math problems. Actually trying to teach in a Sun Program class, where the kids have already been in school all day is not commonly attempted. Although I was warned, I knew I could make it enjoyable and fun for the children. Math can be fun, I told myself. The other class I was giving was going to be teaching was Kindergarten through second grade, and it was ultimately agreed would be “Dinosaurs” as the topic. I had spent the summer volunteering at the zoo, which had animatronic dinosaurs. I had learned enough so that I could definitely attempt to teach children about dinosaurs. Since I had already taught a science class with this age level I thought I could make it work.
Both classes were very challenging, and although I couldn’t have done it without my fantastic volunteers, the classes were a total success. So much so that I felt that some people who laughed at a male working in the Elementary environment, became jealous of my success. I even taught my math class an SAT problem that ninety percent of high school students miss. We did this through the use of drawings, the very way you teach mathematical concepts to children. I know that I am above and beyond ready, experience wise, to go for my Master’s of Education in Teaching.