Field Experience: Day 4

Today I arrived in Mrs. Murphy's kindergarten classroom expecting nothing out of the ordinary. However, when I walked into the room, half of the kids were sitting politely on the carpet like usual waiting for their Monday morning routine and the other half were running around the room not listening to a single order. Mrs. Murphy was gone and there was a substitute teacher. I quickly found out why the kids were acting this way. Finally, most of the kids listened and found their way to the carpet to sit politely. However, one little girl thought she could do whatever she wanted since a substitute teacher was there. While the substitute teacher was reading a book to the kids on the carpet, this little girl was crawling underneath the tables, taking her shoes off, putting ink from an ink pad onto her fingers then onto the table, and not listening to me when I told her to go sit with the rest of the kids on the carpet. I didn't know what the proper way to discipline her would be or if I could even discipline her, however, I felt that I should help the substitute teacher keep the kids in order. So, I finally told her to please stop one last time. After she shook her head at me and said "No, I can do what I want teacher", I said, "If you don't get onto the carpet with the rest of your class in two minutes, I am going to call Mrs. Murphy and have her take minutes off of your free time today". She quickly followed orders after I said this and went onto the carpet and started to behave. Today was an experience and I feel that I learned a lot from it. It was exciting to see how different the kids can be when something is out of the ordinary (like having a substitute teacher). I didn't do an activity with my normal four kids today, instead I helped the substitute teacher keep the kids in line for the rest of the time that I was there. It was a different but fun day.