When I first found out my student teaching placement for the fall semester back at the end of August, I knew very little about it, but heard good things. A month and a half later, I am obsessed. It's a very small school (only about 200 students) in East Harlem that caters mostly to the children of the community. I am in a 4th/5th Grade CTT (Collaborative Team Teaching aka inclusive), which means that it is a mix of general ed and special ed in one class, with two teachers, a paraeducator, and myself. The class consists of 29 students. Off the top of my head, I would say 18 of them are African/African-American, 8 are Latino, 2 are White, and 1 is Asian. It's a nice mix, and all of the students seem to get along well, despite their racial diversity. Of course, I credit a lot of that to the principal and my two CTs (cooperating teachers), for creating such a peaceful and accepting environment.
Once a week we have community meetings, which is basically a school assembly. We state our school pledge, and sing our school song: "Sing Out" by Cat Stevens, currently receiving a second wind thanks to the new iPod commercial. It's actually really cute hearing them all sing it. It's a catchy song and gets stuck in their heads, so they'll be singing it all day. Hey, it could be worse.
Another neat thing about my school is that everyone, the principal included, is on a first name basis. There is not Mr. Amore, or even Mr. Matt. It's just Matt. I believe this adds to the community feel the school stives for, and achieves!
I find myself very fortunate to be in a place that is so progressive and so community-based. As someone who plans to open up his own school one day, I'm taking notes!
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