Name: Mahra Al Qassimi

ID: H00330597
Instuctor: Mr. Basel Badran
EPC 1903 Practicum 1b

Reflections on Journal 8
On 14th of March, my partner and I first teaching held place at 8:30am right after
the children were done with their free play. My partner and I made an honest
mistake by preparing for the lesson Addition up to 5 instead of Addition stories.
From that mistake, everything was going smoothly at the beginning then things
started being messy afterwards. Our lesson preparation was graded good
especially because our MST was very interested with our decision in handing out a
lesson plan for her assistant teacher, Ms. Lizzle. I didnt give it to her because I
was told too but because even if shes an assistant shes still a teacher and its our
job to include her in everything out of respect. As for the classroom management,
we had trouble with the transitions to another activity, and we need improvement.
I didnt know that it was okay for us to ring the bell, but now that we know well
do a better job next time hopefully. For the professional qualities, Ms. Tammy
graded me Good. I was going to talk to Mr. Basel about her complaining that I
arrive to class late, but I decided to talk to her again. When we started out
observations, I went to her and said: Im sorry for being late but its because...
and I got interrupted by her saying: You can come whenever you want, its okay.
When she gave me the feedback report back, I was quite shocked but decided to
have a conversation about this next week when I see her. I emailed Ms. Tammy
the day before our TP, asking her if there were any special needs students other

than Nada S. and she told me Mohammed Ali. I havent realized that Mohammed
Ali was a special needs student, I saw him participating in class at all times while
being energetic. I was very proud of Nada S, she worked on the worksheet that I
gave her very diligently, I asked Tasneem to help her without giving her the answer
while I go and help out the other students.
Last week I tried to give a point about Nada S, but couldnt find the exact right
words but found it when watching Khalid Al Ameri (Columnist and Speaker
), talking about his nursery kids habit, Abdulla, who has a speech delay and tends
to be very active.
Khalid: Abdulla spent his first two years in America, so his first year in nursery
didnt go very well. All teachers referred to him as fidgety or he touches other
students, and when asked what did they mean by fidgety they said he moves
around a lot and what did they mean by touching other students they said he hugs
them. Khalids response to their statement was: okay, is that bad thing?.
In Abdullas new nursery, his teachers were assessing Abdulla and sent Khalid a
message using words instead of hes fidgety, hes energetic and instead of hes
touching students hes compassionate and loving towards them. When Khalid
received this message he was about to break into tears and said: The words that
they use on kids like that could destroy them, if they believe that theyre doing
something wrong when theres nothing wrong with it. The problem is that a lot of

Education systems think that if youre not this type of child theres something
wrong with you and they try to put you inside that box where you have to get
tested. They forget all these special human beings in the world had issues growing
up like Einstein supposedly couldnt tie his laces, but they forget about these
stories. The thing is I urge all of you to do as parents, as teachers is to be
compassionate towards these students, be understanding, not all of them are the
same and the special teachers are the ones who see that. When a child is different
that doesnt mean theres something wrong with them, that means theyre unique,
theyre special and that they could still do amazing things in the world no matter
what. It scares me to think that if I have not been engaged with my sons teachers
that he would have grown up believing that hugging people was wrong. I urge
parents and communities to get active in childs education, because they deserve to
know how special they are today and all the amazing things they can do
tomorrow Good luck and God bless.
The people in the picture below is Khalid Al Ameri and his family, may god bless
them.