This week was our second full week in Philly!! It was definitely the longest, and most tiring week so far.
But, finally I got put into a classroom at Southwark school where I have been interning. On Thursday, I got to sit in, and hang out in a Pre-k class with a bunch of cute angles!! At first when I met them in the school yard, they were saying goodbye to their parents (some for the first time-- that was heartbreaking). Then we made our way up to the classroom on the first floor. In the beginning I was hanging out with this little 3 year old because she hadn't stopped crying since she said goodbye to her parents. Finally she calmed down and began playing with me, and some of the other little girls during play time. Eventually she went off on her own and began finding her own things to do. This is when I made friends with three tiny girls, one who only spoke Spanish, and I began speaking Spanish with me. They were delighted to hear a familiar language coming from an adult in their classroom! Those three stuck to me like glue for the rest of the day, and I loved it! The schedule in this classroom was so simple, but adorable. We did things like free time, breakfast, circle time, activity centers, lunch, then they went home. It made me think about how simple life is as a three year old. But, also how even in Pre-k the education is changing to be more of a business, rather then for kids.
I was talking with the assistant teacher in that classroom, and she was showing me the teacher workbooks that she had last year, and comparing them to the ones she had been given to teach with this year. She was telling me how the schooling education system had made so many changes to things in the books. For example, the subjects used to be like "things that go together", or "seasons". They had changed them to just "balls". She was expressing to me that 3-4 years ago this job was so fun to her because they had a lot of freedom to grow with their students, and be very creative with the things they taught. But, today it has to be very by the book, and they are trying to stretch their standardize teaching all the way down to pre-k!! This was blowing my mind, and making me a little angry because it sounded too much like high school, and not like pre-k.
But, over all this was such an amazing day. Already, I've grown attached to the 10 little kids in that classroom, and cannot wait to see them again on Tuesday.
Here is a picture of a super cute, plant store filled with succulents that is about a 5 minute walk from my house in South Philly called "Urban Jungle".
