Upon Leaving Student Teaching I cannot believe that my journey as a student teacher is drawing to a close.

Student teaching has been rewarding, challenging and an experience that has helped me grow towards my future teaching career. I cannot say enough about the wonderful learning experiences that the PS 19 learning community has afforded me. The administrative, office, custodial, teaching as well as the rest of the support staff were all extremely welcoming and supportive. They all went al long way towards making me feel part of the school community. I really fostered strong relationships with my cooperating teachers, students and with the other faculty members. This has been the most amazing learning experience. I have learned about the roles of being a teacher, a co-teacher, and positive role model in the lives of students. I have also learned a great deal about myself in the process. I am feeling nostalgic about leaving PS 19. In my first placement I was placed in a 5th grade integrated CO-Teaching class. I was able to develop and implement ELA lessons and Social Studies lessons. It was a complete learning experience that has helped me develop my skills as a teacher. I learned about classroom management, working collaboratively with others, IEP writing, rewards system that is used throughout the school called PAWS and the use of APPS such as Class DOJO. The two teachers in this class were quite helpful in sharing their wealth of experiences in doing running records, time management techniques in the classroom and strategies for teaching ELA and Math aligned with the new Common Core Curriculum. I thoroughly enjoyed my second placement with Mrs. Chiarello and my 2nd grade students. I was surprised at how fast I learned the names of my new students and they sure remembered my name. I particularly enjoyed their enthusiasm, excitement, energy and sense of innocence. Mrs. Chiarello taught me a great deal about managing a class of nd young energetic 2 graders; she gave me helpful feed back on my lessons and afforded me lots of opportunities to take charge of the class. I really felt that I finally found my niche. I feel a sense of connection with both this teacher and the students. In fact, I was invited to attend the Christmas festivities later on in December. You can bet that I will be there to see them all. I know that I will take all the experiences with both the teachers and the students and put them in my future reference spot where I can easily access them and use them in my own classroom in the future. Through these wonderful experiences in a school and in the classroom, I now know that I want to teach younger children and will pursue graduate studies in special education with a focus on the early childhood grades. I feel that I have grown both personally and professionally through this experience and look forward to the day when I have my own class. Thank you to both Manhattan College for the wonderful preparation it offers to future teachers and to the staff and students at PS 19 for the enriching learning experiences.