Madelyn Oppenheim – Elementary Education Internship

My name is Madelyn Oppenheim and I am an intern at Blue Ball Elementary School. I am currently working with Mrs. Schultz’s 5th-grade class. Each day I get to spend about 25 minutes with the Language Arts class and about 1 hour and 30 minutes with the Math class. When I first started my internship, I spent most of my time doing observations and learning the students’ names. In the first two weeks, I learned a lot about Mrs. Schultz’s teaching style which helped me to understand how to better help the students later.

After about 2 weeks of observations, I began grading assignments and interacting with the students more. They began coming to me to ask questions about assignments which was a really cool experience. They also wanted to know more about me. The students would ask me questions every day. They wanted to know what grade I was in and if I knew their older siblings. One boy even wanted to ask me all about sports (which I know nothing about). At this point, I also began making copies for Mrs. Schultz’s lessons. My workload with the class was still pretty light until about 3 weeks into my internship.

Eventually, Mrs. Schultz asked me to begin working on a packet with the collaborative station. I am still working through these types of packets with the collaborative station. The biggest challenge that I have faced with this is time management. When I’m at the collaborative station, my job is to be a resource for the students. If all of the students need help at once, I need to be sure to keep a cool head and help them all to the best of my ability. One of my favorite parts of my internship is working with the Language Arts class on their editing sentences. I have always loved English and those assignments are what I know best.

This experience has created a foundation for me. It made me realize that I am meant to be a teacher in the future. This experience has also taught me that patience is a virtue. If a student is getting frustrated, you can’t respond with frustration or the situation will get worse. I have learned to keep a cool head and work with students to find a different way to work through any challenge. The kids respond well to me and I love working with them. Watching their minds work to figure out an answer and the looks on their faces when they get the right answer is so exciting.