An Intern's Experience

I went on a field trip on Thursday with my students. We went to a ranch south of Houston to show the kids how people in Texas lived back in the 1800's through early 1900's and how life was hard for them. Specifically, we learned about the cattle ranchers and the cowboys that brought their cattle up north to be sold. Very Brokeback Mountain minus the gayness. I ate a homemade biscuit that was made from a recipe dated back to the early 1800's. Pretty good.

I experienced a huge deja vu in the morning when I got to school. Instead of my purse and my lunch sack (because of the field trip), I walked up to the school with a dark blue backpack slung over my right shoulder, cranberry juice in one hand and a cookie in the other. This is exactly what I had every morning when I went to high school. If I didn't have cranberry juice, I had chocolate milk.

Stepping on the bus was weird for me as well. It was the first time I stepped on a bus in 10 years. Nothing has changed except for two security cameras that were installed on the bus. One up front and one in the middle. I guess that's a good thing. Not good for students that like to pick their noses and eat the boogers or pick at their butts. There's an audience now.

On the way there, it was a slow drive because of the traffic. We have 8 students. Three of them wanted to sit together so that left one student alone, so I decided to sit with her. She's a new student that just moved from Africa a few weeks ago. She kept pointing out the window asking me what the names (specifically, signs) were for everything, so we worked on improving her vocabulary. She was in awe of everything. Last week, I had taught the class what solids, liquids and gasses were. As we traveled down the highway, we passed a couple of houses, creeks and factories. She beamed at me and called them out - solid, liquid and gas. This is why I want to be a teacher. Very satisfying.

I love working with her. She's always smiling and has an enthusiasm for learning new things. Although, just like any other student, she gets tired of working and gets restless in class. No student is perfect, I suppose... but she's pretty close. We continued to work on her vocabulary all the way to the ranch. Coming from Africa, her reading ability is quite low and some of her signs are different from ours. However, she excels in Math and is a quick learner.

Once we got to the ranch, I paired up with another student of mine. She has Cerebral Palsy and struggles with keeping her balance while walking. The ranch is a pretty big place, so this student was given the courtesy of riding a golf cart around the place. The teacher stayed behind with the other 7 students while I rode around on the golf cart with my student on my lap (who's very small and weighs about the same as my 2 1/2 year old). Because of her special crutches, she couldn't carry around her lunch or anything that she received that day. Guess who got stuck with carrying them all? I stuffed them all in my backpack. Good thing I decided to bring a backpack with me.

Most of the land was grass so my student struggled with dragging her crutches across. I carried her around piggyback style and had fun with her. She's so adorable and sweet - but like any other student, she has her flaws. She's SO slow with her assignments! While I think it's cute, it's definitely annoying - often, she'll stop whatever she's doing and get into a giggling fit. I wonder what goes on inside that mind of hers.

So far, my experience as an intern has been a good one. My students may drive me crazy and I may like some more than the others, but I know one thing for sure. When I finish my internship there in four weeks, I'll miss them.