Quincy Agnew

Mrs. Wright

EDUC 422

April 18, 2017

I was placed at Whittaker Elementary for my 10 hours of field experience. During my

time there I had the pleasure of observing, helping, and learning from a great teacher in Mrs.

Anthony. The experience was one of the most eye-opening field placements that I have

undertaken in my time at Claflin University. I was able to learn so much about how the

Socioeconomic Status of students can play a large part in their educations. My field experience

helped me to grow professionally this semester.

The first professional issue that I expressed to Mrs. Anthony was my lack of confidence

in my lesson planning skills. She quickly addressed those concerns during my first two field

experience visits by allowing me to view her lesson plans and breaking them down for me to

show certain things were more detailed than others. Her lesson plans were tailored for her

students learning. She swayed my attention to her few personal favorites in lesson planning that

have served her well during her time as a teacher. She showed me how to make sure students

had fun while still learning. I knew I had trouble with balancing both information and

entertainment. She would play soft instrumental of their favorite songs while instructing. This

increased attention and participation to the lesson. The students were quiet and listening to the

song but were also forced to hear the information. I definitely plan on using this technique in my

classroom in the future.

We covered many ethical concerns such as sexist remarks regarding gender biased

remarks, questions, and answers being that I was a male educator. She also went through
inappropriate contact with students stating no hugs, stick to high fives and fist pounds. She

explained that this would ensure my safety and that my professionalism could never be called

into question. I was very happy that she was expressing genuine concern for my career and I took

the information and internalized it. Another main focus of these professional conversations was

professional dress. She started by outlining the difference between business casual, caual,

business attire, and semiformal wear. She stated how much my demeanor reminded her of that of

a principal and then went into how most male administrators wear ties and/or suits. She talked

about how I should dress for the job I want and not just the job I have. This talk helped me grow

and define myself as a teacher in the professional sense.

During the times where I was allowed to instruct the class she was sure to take notes and

go over them with me post-instruction. I was allotted 20-30 minutes each time to instruct the

class on a topic of her choice and then my performance was graded Mrs. Anthony and her

cooperating teacher Mrs. Kitt-Williams. Both of them noted by confidence, content knowledge,

and ability to own the room when teaching. Some down points were my lack of technology

used in lessons, time management, and imbalance of instruction and practice.

Overall I was very happy with my placement and would hope to have it again to be

nurtured and bred as an educator in both the school and classroom environment. I grew

enormously in all aspects of a modern teacher and was given great knowledge that will serve me

as I make the transition from student to first year teacher hopefully in this same district.