Accomplishments

I job shadowed at Simmons Elementary School which is located in Horsham, Pennsylvania. It is one of five elementary schools in the Hatboro-Horsham School District. Its purpose is to provide children ranging from grades K-5 with a good education and great teachers to help the kids earn it. My mentor’s name is Linda Birkelbach and she is a second grade elementary school teacher. My mentor’s responsibilities include interacting with her students, teaching them basic reading, writing, and math skills, and making sure that the children stay safe throughout the day.

During my day at Simmons Elementary School, I was able to assist Mrs. Birkelbach with editing her student’s writing assignments about their favorite holiday. Mrs. Birkelbach also read them some information about dinosaurs because an archaeologist was going to be coming to their school. All of the second graders were going to be able to learn how to recover artifacts and they were going to be able to take a dinosaur bone home with them. Another thing that was going on was Earth Week. The students had to sing a song to Mrs. Birkelbach and me that they had been learning in Music class.

 I learned a lot during my job shadow. One thing I learned is that elementary students are very exciting and always want to be learning something new and doing something different. Elementary school is a very important time in their life because they are just starting to learn about themselves and their surroundings. Another thing I learned during my day is how rewarding being a teacher must be. Being able to be a part of a child’s life that has just started their journey and still have so much ahead of them must be so exciting. When teachers teach something new to students, it must be a great feeling. Another insight was that teaching is not easy. There is a lot of work that goes into being a teacher. If someone wants to become a teacher, they need to be good planners and be very patient people. While teaching is a great career, it is very challenging.