Whats in a Name?

     Well my first week of student teaching at "C-Shool" is completed. My accomplishment for the week... learning all 28 of my homeroom student's names by Tuesday! Now before you get too impressed, remember that it is student conferences this week so we spent all day on Monday and Tuesday preparing portfolios to share with parent(s)/guardian(s). Therefore, we were handing back a ton of copies of assignments which resulted in me having to pick up names quite quickly or be left standing blindly in the middle of the room! To compare, during my student teaching placement in the fall I feel as though I didn't learn everyone's names until the end of the second week. Although, this may have been because we had five classes of students and I find that high school students aren't as willing to chat with you as much as Grade 5's are!

In classes we were told that one of the most important things we can do to help build relationships with our students and begin establishing classroom management is to learn our students names as quickly as possible and it definitely makes a difference!  I found that my students noticed immediately when I was able to greet them by name and were often surprised (I think that I learned their names before some of them could remember what mine was, haha). Knowing a student's name shows that you are paying attention, care about them and care about how the classroom is operating. I know that some students felt as though they could push the limits of some classroom policies because I was new to the classroom but as soon as I was able to call on them by name this quickly diminished.

     I have had such a great time this week and love the classroom that I am in! I can't wait until I can begin teaching my own lesson plans this upcoming week. I feel more prepared now that I have begun building a solid rapport with my class :)