For many years I was a cooperating teacher and master teacher. I also worked for several universities as a field supervisor for student teachers. I witnessed some great and not-so-great students. You want to make your experience as positive as possible. You can achieve your goal of having a successful student teaching experience.

Once you have your assignment, contact the school and co-operating teacher as soon as possible. Set up an appointment. This must be done prior to the first day of school.

When you arrive at the school, introduce yourself to the office staff. They can really be helpful, and they keep things running smoothly. Ask for a school handbook and familiarize yourself with the rules. You will be expected to follow them. Seek out the principal and introduce yourself.

Be sure you get a calendar for the school year. You must know the dates for the semester, which will include holidays, teacher in-service and testing days. There are times when vacations for your college and the school district are different. You will be expected to adhere to the school district’s calendar.

Before you meet your teacher, have a brief biography with your address and phone number(s). Give the teacher the biography and handbook that explains what is expected.

The teacher also needs to know your calendar. You will start on the first day of the semester, but, in most cases, will leave early. University/college semesters end before those of the public schools. This means the teacher will have the class back full time and has to prepare.

Always address the teacher by the last name. If he/she says it’s OK to use their first name, never do so during class time. The teacher is also expected to call you by your last name.

Always be on time. Leave home early and get there before class begins. Traffic tie-ups are not good excuses.

Dress professionally – no jeans. Even if there is a casual dress policy, maintain your professionalism. The way you dress makes an impression. The administration knows you are student teaching. If you maintain a professional appearance, it will be noticed.

Plan ahead. Work on lesson plans with your co-operating teacher. Always get them approved. If you want to try something different, get the teacher’s approval. There are those teachers who want you to do things their way and those who will let you spread your wings. When you have finished with the lesson, always get feedback.

Be flexible. You may have the best lesson plan when something interferes. It’s always the unexpected: fire drill, special guest speaker, a lock down. Don’t let these incidents rattle you. There will always be another day.

If you are going to be absent, you must notify the teacher and school ASAP. Do not do it by email. Most teachers do not have time to read emails before school. Call the switchboard and leave a message. Ask that your teacher be notified.

Keep a journal. Note classroom management techniques, start of class and end of class. What does this teacher do that you think is effective? Also put down the things that you think are ineffective. When you teach a lesson note what went right/wrong. Write how you would change it. This begins to give you an idea on how you want to run your own classroom.

Don’t sit around. Let the teacher know that you are willing to jump in. Ask the teacher what you can do. You may start with taking roll or passing out papers. This gives you a chance to get to know the students. It also lets them know you are there in an official capacity. When it comes to the students, be a teacher, not a friend. You can’t be both.

Get to know other teachers on the staff. Visit other classrooms. You can get ideas from observing classes not in your discipline. Teaching is a technique and transcends subjects.

Join teachers for lunch. You will hear about the school and students. Never gossip. Always maintain credibility.

Attend in-service days and staff meetings. Ask if you can sit in on parent/teacher conferences. The more exposure you get to the real world of teaching, the more successful you will be.

The student teaching experience can be an exciting time. It’s important to be organized and follow through. You are embarking on the roll of a professional educator. If you follow these tips for a successful student teaching experience, not only will it be satisfying, but you may end up with a placement.

In 1954 the United States Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) which found that segregated schools were a violation of equal protection rights. It would be another twenty years before this concept was applied to children with handicaps, especially learning disabilities, trying to receive an education. In fact, shortly after Brown was decided the Illinois Supreme Court found that compulsory education did not apply to mentally impaired students, and as late as 1969, it was a crime to try to enroll a handicapped child in a public school if that child had ever been excluded.

Due to court challenges in Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia in the early 1970’s things started to change. In 1975 Congress enacted the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. This was the first law that mandated that all handicapped students had a right to an education. Not only did it mandate that all handicapped students had a right to an education, it also mandated that local educational agencies could be held accountable for not doing so. Shortly thereafter, the term handicapped was replaced with “child with a disability”. Although revised in 1990 as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the most comprehensive changes came in 1997. This law required schools to identify children with disabilities to make sure that all children have available a “free appropriate public education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for employment and independent living” 20 U.S.C. § 1401 (d). Unfortunately, the most recent changes in 2004 made the law slightly more difficult to receive the benefits they deserve, which, depending upon the next administration and the make up of Congress may or may not be a trend that will be followed in the future.

Exactly what is a “free appropriate public education”? Under the law, it is defined as “special education and related services that (A) have been provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge: (B) meet the standards of the State educational agency; (C) include an appropriate preschool, elementary or secondary school education in the State involved; and (D) are provided in conformity with the individualized education program required under [the law].” In other words, the school must provide services that meet the needs of a child with a disability that may affect their ability to learn. These “related services” can be services that are provided in the classroom, such as giving the child extra time to finish taking tests. They can also encompass services that can be provided outside of the classroom, such as tutoring, or having the child attend either a day or residential program outside of the school, along with transportation.

For the historical data, I relied on Wrightslaw: Special Education Law by Peter W. D. Wright and Pamela Darr Wright and Special Education Law in Massachusetts by Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education.

The video “Pre-school in Three Different Cultures” illustrates this diversity in educational styles to the viewer. The documentary consists of the filming of three different pre-schools in different countries during the span of a normal day. The summaries of the day’s activities given in the video for each of the pre-schools let the viewer analyze both the social and academic aspects of the children’s experience throughout the day. The pre-schools included in the video are Komatsudani from Japan, Dong-feng from China, and St.Timothy from the U.S. (Hawaii). The following paper will shed light on what is known as constructivism and behaviorism, and describe which one of the schools falls under each category.

Constructivism is the theory that views children as little individual scientists. When following the theory of constructivism, students are allowed to explore their environment, interact with it, and learn from it. The constructivist teacher acts as a support pillar for students to lean on when they are in need, not the leader that everyone must follow. Constructivism also sees differences amongst the children and the things they learn from their interactions; not everyone learns the same things at the same rate or with the same ease.

After watching the video, the school that seems to have the most constructivist approach is St.Timothy. When it came time for the students to partake on an activity, the teacher gave them the opportunity to choose the activity they preferred instead of assigning them one or making the whole class do the same thing. This approach allows the students to participate on an activity that they find stimulating, which tends to let students learn much more than an activity that they find boring. It is also worth mentioning that when the students chose an activity by pointing at the representative objects the teacher would let the student know that she wanted them to indicate it by using spoken language. The teacher used a constructivist approach when doing this since she did not guide the student on how to form the sentence, but rather let them construct their own sentences and correcting them if necessary.

One of the activities, and the teacher’s comment regarding the activity, shows the constructivist ideal beyond any other thing seen in the video. The activity being referred to is the block building activity, during which the students are allowed to rearrange the blocks in any way he choose to. This is a very different approach to the one used in one of the other schools in which students are given specific guidelines to follow when using the blocks. When asked about the difference in approaches, the teacher in St.Timothy responded that she thought their approach was better because when you let children build their own structures they will sometimes come up with things that the teacher would never even think of. This is a great example of the idea that children are like little scientists with very different approaches to learning through their environment.

Another aspect in which St.Timothy’s approaches were very constructivists was behavior and discipline. There is an instance during the day during which a student refuses to clean up the materials even after the teacher has asked him to do so directly. Instead of ordering the student to pick up the materials by using her authority like many teachers tend to do, the teacher talks to him at an equal level. She doesn’t just boss him into putting the things away, but rather tries to make the student think of the consequences that might come about from not picking up the materials. She explains to the student that if the materials are not picked up some of his fellow students might end up injured. After he refuses to comply once again, the teacher gives him two choices. The student has to choose between spending time alone or picking up the materials. It does not take more than a minute before the student decides to comply.

Some people might dispute that the Japanese approach regarding behavior and discipline at Komatsudani is more constructivists because it has less teacher involvement, but the teacher’s approach seems to be more negligence than constructivism. The principal of the school is quoted saying that it is normal and even necessary for boys to fight because it is the way that they learn how to resolve problems that might arise later in life. The statement might have some truth to it, but as his own statement says, the children are learning and therefore don’t have the required skills to resolve these problems yet. As a teacher, one can let them try to solve the problem by themselves but always keeping very close surveillance. It is not a good approach to simply ignore the situation or tell a child “why don’t you do something about it?”, like one of the teachers at Komatsudani was quoted saying when told about another child’s misbehavior.

Behaviorism is the theory that states that people can be taught through the use of reward and/or punishment. The theory is also seen as the more repetitive of the two theories because it often involves the use of drill-and-practice as the main form of instruction. In behaviorism the teacher is the main focus of the class and all the students must often follow the directions exactly as they are given.

The school that most resembles the ideals of the behaviorist theory in the video was Dong-feng from China. One of the first examples of this is when the 4:2:1 phenomenon is explained. The 4:2:1 phenomenon occurs due to the attempts of lowering China’s population. According to the school officials, the problem is that now more than ever a lot of children are single children that are showered with attention from two parents and four grandparents. Behaviorism is shown when the school staff claims that they must correct the mistakes done by the parents and grandparents regarding the children’s behavior due to excessive attention and spoiling.

Another instance in which the school’s behaviorist approach was obvious was the bathroom usage. The school’s bathroom usage approach was weird to say the least, all students were to go to the bathroom at the same time and in the same place. The teachers claimed that if a student really needed to use the facilities he or she was allowed to go at another time than the one scheduled, but that it was good for students to become familiar with the concept of scheduling and should try their best to become accustomed to the time guidelines.

The school’s behaviorist approach was also evident during formal instruction and before meals. Before every meal, the students must always participate in giving thanks for their food by reciting a chant in unison that goes something like “this food sure smells good, I bet it’s delicious, I am so thankful for my dad and mom”. The repetition of this chant serves as a way to reinforce the idea that the students should be thankful for their parents and whatever their parents were able to give them as a meal.

When it comes to formal instruction their approach is very behaviorist and completely different from the approach taken by St.Timothy. In Dong-feng the students are given specific instructions on how to work with the wooden blocks and must set up the materials in a certain way before they are even allowed to start. Once they start building their wooden structures, they must follow the guidelines, and will not be given any positive reinforcement if they deviate from them by doing something different or creative. Instead of rewarding creativity like the staff in St.Timothy, the staff at Dong-feng seems to only care about the students’ ability to follow directions.

When it comes to educating and teaching students with cultural and linguistic diversity, one must always keep the lessons interesting and original. As a future teacher, my area of expertise will most probably be math. My lessons will contain as many visual components as possible and as much student participation as the lesson allows. I will motivate the students to take risks by making a constructivism-behaviorism-constructivism sandwich. The students will be given a task to complete, which they don’t yet have the skills for. During this time the students will be encouraged to brainstorm ideas on how the task might be completed; both right and wrong approaches will be celebrated as achievements, the important thing is that they are willing to try new things. Once the brainstorming period is done, I will instruct them on how the task is most commonly completed. The students will then be given some time to practice following the specific steps that allow them to complete the task. After they seem confident enough using these steps, they will be given the freedom to experiment with other approaches that they might have thought of after being taught the steps. They will be encouraged to use any methods that make the task easier for them as long as it gets them to the right answer. They will also be told that it is perfectly fine to use the steps taught by the teacher, but that the approach might not be the only or easiest one.

To conclude, I believe that in education neither constructivism nor behaviorism have all the answers. As a teacher, one must find a midpoint, a way to combine the best aspects of the two in order to provide the best learning environment and results. It is my opinion that St.Timothy was the better school among the three when it came to formal instruction and correcting misbehavior. I also find it worth mentioning that both Komatsudani’s staff’s lack of action disciplining the students and Dong-feng’s bathroom routine were somewhat disconcerting.