For my 1st and 2nd grade class, my lesson was to give them general idea of amount of water on earth and how water cycle works. I began the class by asking the students where they see water, what kind of water they drink everyday and how much water we have on earth. We talked about the difference between saltwater and freshwater and the daily usage of them. To further their understanding about the scarcity of water on earth, I used different water bottles to pour out some water in order to demonstrate the availability of freshwater. Next I transitioned the topic to the water cycle and started to ask students what forms of water they see and where they see them, and I wrote their answers on the board and connected the ideas. To better demonstrate the terms condensation, I conducted an experiment “cloud in the bottle” which I poured some alcohol and twisted the water bottle and released it suddenly. Cloud is formed in the bottle and students were free to touch the cloud formed in the bottle. The last part of the class, I had a water cycle game where student is a water droplet and they travelled to different locations. I set up locations that water droplet might be and students will randomly pick. The purpose of the game is to help students understand that water can neither be created nor destroyed and it will travel through the water cycle constantly.
For 5th and 6th grade class, I started the class by introducing the concept of water cycle and asked the students to play the same game as as 1st and 2nd grade class. Then gradually transitioned the topic to river system and how river system relates to water cycle. I asked the students to build a watershield using cardboard, bottles and gravels. The rain was simulated using spray bottle. As the students observed the water traveled through the water shield, I introduced the idea of water pollution and erosion.
This is my first ever teaching experience and I was very nervous and excited about the classes I was about to teach. Despite the fact that I had previous tutoring experience, teaching and tutoring are, after all, very different experience and from different perspective. While I was preparing for the lesson plan, I tried to teach students as much as possible and tried to make the class as fun as possible. As I participated in my peers’ classes, I realized sometimes it is not necessary the content or the knowledge that the students will remember, but rather the connection the students feel with the subject or the emotion the subject rise in students’ mind is what they won’t forget. Students won’t mind that much about whether the structure of the class is unorganized or teacher made some mistakes, they’ll remember the fun game they played, engaging teacher and cool experiment. I am glad I conducted the cloud in a bottle experiment with my students and the amazement on the student's’ face remind me again the importance of great teaching. The week I spent in La Push was amazing as I learned so much from my peers about how they engage with the students and how they approach teaching with great confidence. Students are all the same no matter where they go to school or whatever their backgrounds are; they all have the inherent curiosity toward nature, people and new things. It’s really only up to the teachers to bring out the best of the students. Students are so different at the same time, some are very open to express their ideas and some are very conscious of others. It was very challenging for me to create an atmosphere where all kinds of students have equal opportunity to speak up. However, I’m glad that people in my group all try to solve this problem together.
As the week carried on, I felt more like a part of the La Push community. The first day, we were introduced in the morning circle and was greeted by the whole school and community. This morning circle is very powerful event to bring students, teachers together, as students and teachers were both been recognized for their accomplishment in the past week. On Wednesday night, we were invited to the dance circle where community member brought food to share and people sat in circle to watch tribal dance. It was such an enjoyable night where I got to taste delicious tribal food cooked with elk meat and surrounded by warm quileute people. My group got to join the traditional dance as one of our students invited us to dance with them. Although,none of us was a great dancer but that was the moment I felt I was a part of community. On Friday, before we leave the school, one of the tribal senior brought us traditional fried bread and it was so delicious that made me feel how warm and welcoming this community is.
I’ve learned much more than I expected from EASB, from peers, class instructor, teachers, tutoring experience and the students in the school. Before joined EASB, I had no idea what American K-12 education was like. As I had more classes with EASB, I realized American k-12 system is great comparing to my home country’s but it’s not perfect. However, at the meantime, I see so many brilliant young minds fight for the inequality in the system and try to improve the the teaching system as much as they can, I was very inspired by these great leaders and my peers. I am glad that EASB program existed at the first place and I hope to bring back to China what I learned about teaching here.
- Xiange Wang