My first class-9

My First Class

By Juliet L. Castellanos

EDI 600 Psychological Foundation Of Education

Long Island University, C. W. Post
September 3, 2008

On my first day of Graduate school, I felt a combination of emotions. I was nervous and yet excited to be embarking on this new journey working towards my masters degree. I felt a little timid walking into this classroom because I graduated from my undergraduate work over a year ago and had forgotten what it was like to be in a classroom. All of these insecurities fueled my nervousness in starting this semester. Within five minutes of the class starting, I felt comfortable and welcomed.

We started out by having an introduction to our neighbors. I met “Lively Lauren” who sits next to me, and found out that she lives not to far away from me and that we are the same age. I also learned from her that she graduated from C.W. Post in her Undergraduate work. This type of personal information I probably would not have learned from my neighbor in the first class if the professor didn’t tell us to introduce ourselves.

For the majority of the class, we played the name game. The name game consists of the students forming a circle with their desks and associating their names with something funny or rhyming to help the students remember their name. This game was fun to say the least but also very helpful! Adding humor to the classroom, especially with young children will help keep them engaged in the activities at hand.

I have learned this in my years of teaching pre-school. Keeping the classroom light hearted and fun for the children is imperative because they will absorb more information and become more eager to learn new subjects and activities. I walked out of my first class feeling relieved and excited to write my first journal entry and read the chapters in my text book. - Juliet L. Castellanos (September 3, 2008)