Observing at Andersen United

On Thursday (the same day as the Clean-o-thon), I went to Andersen United to observe Paloma in coaching her group of 5th graders. Her public achievement group is focusing on Immigration. She has a 6th grade co-coach who she met with on Monday to prepare for this day's meeting. She said that she normally doesn't meet with him, but this week was a good opportunity to help him prepare and lead the meeting.

Unfortunately when she got there things hadn't went as planned, so they had to back-track in their plan for the day. One of her students was suppose to make an announcement about the May Day Parade a couple days earlier, but was unable to because he didn't get the sheet of paper he was going to read from from the 6th grade cocoach, and he forgot. Paloma responded wonderfully though. She only had 30 minutes with her students, but she did a very good job of leading them into what they needed to get done. She was quick on her feet, and worked well with what was coming at her. She took her students back down to the office to see if they could have another chance at making an announcement. They got that set up, and while they were down in the office they put up a May Day poster they had made and went over what they were going to announce. I just thought it was a great use of the short time they had--even during travel time they were getting things done, and it was a long ways to the office from the 5th grade classroom.

Another thing Paloma was good at was encouraging student involvement. I had heard that most of the students at Andersen were very quiet and it was hard to get them to speak out, but I felt like Paloma's group was comfortable talking with each other and talking about the project. She encouraged each of them to be just as involved in the project as the other, not leaving anyone out.

Paloma also knew how to keep her group focused. Constant reminders of what they needed to accomplish and where they were going next helped keep her students on task and moving forward.

While I was observing I reflected on how hard it must be to co-coach with a student. I have a cocoach, but we get to decide when we get together, and she's also my age, so we're kind of on the same page. Paloma's cocoach is much younger than her, a male, and is in school most of the time, so getting together to plan must be difficult if not impossible. I commend her for working so well with hers.

Overall I think Paloma did a very nice job working with her group and I'm so excited for their May Day project that they have put together!!