Back-To-School Delegate

THOUGHTS FROM THE CLASSROOM 🍎: Round Hill Elementary School (#11 of 24 Roanoke City Schools)

My goal to substitute in each of the schools in Roanoke City continued this year with my first stop at Round Hill. Ms. Carter's fourth grade class was pretty good. It is early in the school year, so you can tell students are still testing their limits, especially with a sub in the room 😂.

From the first few minutes I had one student in a stand-off/stare-down with me, but luckily an Assistant Principal was available to calm him down and pull him out for little while.

Part of today's lesson was on the weather. One young man asked me if there are rainbows made from oil, I said "no" quickly. Then I thought about it, "are you talking about when you see oil on the ground from a car and it has different colors?" He then said "yes!" I told him that on other planets it may rain liquids like oil which could make rainbows. Lesson: Don't squash imagination 👍🏽.

One young girl began to cry uncontrollably half-way through class. She seemed distant all class. Fortunately, Round Hill has a full-time social worker who was part of team to take her and help work through whatever she was dealing with.

On the playground, one girl became upset because she was being bullied. She made it clear that she had been bullied since kindergarten. I think this was my first encounter with a bullying situation. We all went back to class and talked through it. I asked who likes being bullied. Then I asked who had bullied her, knowing who did it already. To my surprise, two other girls quickly admitted in front of the class and we all discussed what had happened. I thanked them for their honesty and told the class that this was not acceptable.

Fortunately, Round Hill is proactive when it comes to addressing bullying. After we said the Pledge of Allegiance in the morning, the school recites an anti-bullying creed. This is the first time I had heard this in a school.

Two of the fourth grade girls came up to me at recess and asked "Can we give you some teaching tips?" I said yes😁. They gave me really good advice on classroom management. 💗

With a new young principal who has a background in special education, it seems like Round Hill is well on its way to a good school year! Many thanks and best of luck to all of our teachers!

(Date of original publication: 9/10/2019)