Thomas Huisman

Education 302
Professor Terpstra
October 3, 2016

Context
I have 24 students in my classroom. They all seem to stem from the same west
michigan culture that I grew up in. However, similar to my childhood there is some
variance from student to student. Based on the quality of clothing, snacks that they
bring, and the sports and activities that they are all involved in, most of the students
seem to come from middle to upper class families. Smithville Christians Mission
statement says Within a Reformed worldview, Smithville Christian School will: Nurture
the heart with Biblical truth, equip the mind through academic excellence, and impact the
world for Christ. It speaks of what the school stands for as a whole and what you see in
the teachers and what they teach their students in all situations.
The race in my classroom varies about as much as the culture. I have one boy
who is ethnic background is from Thailand and another one who is from India. Other
than that, my classroom very much white, and dutch. The plus side to having such
homogenous culture within a school is that many kids can closely relate to each other
and in some ways can make teaching easier. On the other hand, it also worries me. I
think that it could be easy for a teacher to teach from one perspective and to one
audience and possibly creating single stories in the lives of their students(ted talks). This
obviously isnt a for sure thing, but it is a weakness to be aware of.
Most kids seem to come from good homes and good families. I know that one
girl's dad is a cement mixer and another is a farmer and another can afford to drive an
escalade. So there is a mix of students from middle to upper class families. In class we

had a devotions about divorce and what it means and what the Bible says about it. Mr.
Bird talked about how some students in the room struggle with stuff like separated
parents and even divorce while others dont. So some students have divorced parents at
Dutton, but it seems to be a lot lower than the national average. All the students seem to
have a strong background in their Biblical knowledge and are familiar with the Bible and
its stories. Its clear that almost every student has gained this knowledge from church,
school and their home. Its been amazing to see the maturity and insight that fourth
graders can possess about our great and wonderful creator. I have been continually
humbled by their innocent wisdom every week at Smithville Christian.
Im often surprised by the students attention and memory skills in class. They do
a good job of listening to Mr. Brown and following his directions. He has a very
commanding presence in the class and I think that helps. Overall, I am very impressed
by how well behaved his class is compared to some other classrooms I have been in
before.
Everyone in the class speaks English, it is everyone's first language. As a
Spanish minor and a future travel abroad student, I am excited to see that the students
are already taking Spanish in elementary school. I believe they have Spanish 1-2 times a
week, which in my opinion, is not enough to really teach much. However, it's good they
are developing a solid base at such a young age. The students got in trouble for talking
too much in Spanish class and when confronted about it in a class talk with Mr. Brown,
they said they were bored in the class and get distracted easily. The students never
speak any spanglish in their regular classroom, because of this I assuming not a ton of
learning or at least interest in the language is actually happening for these young
students when it comes to Spanish.
The class is very diverse in its motor skills and spatial sequencing. For example a
couple of the students like Daniel, Adam, and Eric really struggle to have neat

handwriting and at times struggle to keep their words on the lines at all. There is also a
wide range of spatial sequencing that I see when the students do their five math
questions in the morning. There are other students who have handwriting that rivals my
best work, and take pride in my neat writing. Many students also show great motor
skills during recess. The third and fourth grade compete in in all kinds of intramurals
together. There are rules to include everyone, boys and girls alike in all the plays so
everyone gets a chance to play the games. Intramurals with third and fourth graders and
buddy up groups with first graders really seem to bring the whole school together as
whole and is something that I have not always seen at other schools or the school I grew
up in.
Over the past weeks I have been able to see my students function on very high
levels of thinking and really use their higher order thinking skills in the classroom. I see
this in their projects and class discussion throughout activities. I am often amazed by
how creative many of my students are when they are working on their fantasy or folk tale
projects. Students do things like: make brochures, create comics, build artifacts, or write
newspapers about the stories they have read. I have also seen the students higher order
thinking happen in real time during class discussion. I had the opportunity to teach a
couple Bible lessons on ruth, and then Mr. Brown decided to let me finish the whole unit.
This allowed me to work through all of the material with the students and work through
the assessment portion as well. The students needed to connect the story of Ruth and
Boaz to the story of Jesus and the people of the world. Numerous students were making
connects that I was not expecting and coming up with all the right answers and then
some. I was so happy to have my expectations exceeded that morning.
There are some boys in the class in my class that need extra help with their
school work. Some of them seem slowed down mostly by their writing and reading
abilities while others seem to have more problems with attention. Three of the boys get

to use these rocking stools in class instead of chairs and they help them focus. There is
a para pro that comes in about three times a week to work with some of the boys and
help them with some of their bigger projects like writing papers or researching. The
school does a good job through para pros, and break out groups to keep all the students
moving forward a good pace and providing extra activities or challenges for the few
students that work very quickly.
There is a nice suburban neighborhood right by the school, but most of the
students do not come from there. It is more of a regional school. The region is mostly
just a lot of farm country and small towns. It's very similar to my grade school in
Hudsonville. It seems that all the students come from either spread out houses or more
downtown Harrisburg. I know that a lot of students go to a CRC Church there along with
my teacher Mr. Brown. Smithville itself seems to be almost in the middle of nowhere
from the outside, but I know it's just a ten minute drive in any direction to find a lot more
populated areas. The school itself is growing very quickly. They had to move the fifth
graders up to the middle school the last year or two to make room for all the incoming
students. There is no extra space in the school at all. The Spanish teacher actually
works out of the teachers lounge and goes from classroom to classroom to give Spanish
lessons.