The Student Teacher

Chapter 3: Day 1

Ben could hear the chaos from the hallway. He was so uncomfortable, he didn't know what to do. He stood next to Rey in the doorway and wasn't sure if he should cross his hands, or leave them by his side, or cross them behind his back. His huge frame towered over Rey. A group of three of four kids gathered in the doorway.

"Good Morning Miss Kenobi!" he heard a kid say. "WOAH!" the student stopped in his tracks when he saw Ben. "You're big!"

"Joshua! Mind your manners!" Rey said to him through gritted teeth. Josh turned to her and turned back to Ben.

"Good Morning!" Josh said to Ben.

"Good Morning," Ben replied, "What's your name?"

"I'm Josh. That's Grayson, John, and Cody," he answered for the other boys.

"I'm Mr. Solo. I'll be here for the next 8 weeks," he told them in his deep bellowing voice. The other boys waved at him as they entered the room. He could see Rey place her hand gently on Josh's shoulder. Without words, she managed to compliment him and thank him all at once. This process repeated multiple times as the rest of the children entered the room. They seemed to know exactly what to do, as if they had done it hundreds of times in the past. Once they were mostly all there and seated in a circle on the rug, Rey spoke to them as whole.

"Good Morning, Happy Monday!" she said. "Let's begin!"

The students stood up and started to greet one another. It was a chorus of "good mornings" and "happy Monday!"s. The students were hand shaking and greeting one another without another care in the world. He noticed the atmosphere in the classroom immediately. Boys greeting girls, students of all different backgrounds shaking hands happily. One small girl came up to him, "Good Morning, Mr. Solo," she stuck her hand out.

"Good morning!" he responded to her and stuck his hand out to reciprocate the handshake.

"You have to greet me by name," she told him.

"Could you remind me?" he asked.

"Eliza," she said.

"Good Morning, Eliza!" he said and she finally shook his hand back.

He was in total awe of this one moment. Rey had instilled a sense of community in these kids. She was the teacher he wanted to become and he, all of a sudden, filled with excitement at the chance to get to learn from her. It didn't hurt that she was beautiful and her beauty only grew when she interacted with students. He just had to stand back for a moment and take it all in.

All of a sudden the students were moving about the classroom. They were gathering white boards and markers and moving quickly and quietly to the carpet. Rey was standing in front of them at the Smart Board. Ben found a seat at one of the tables to watch and take it all in. Rey clicked on the board to wake it up.

"Ok, we are starting a new unit today, to get us ready, let's review multiplying with the area model. On your board, show me 53 X 67 using Area Model," she stated.

The students all quietly went to work on their white boards. Rey was looking around and making mental notes. She could see Andrew using traditional and she could see Nick starting to make lists of multiples. Jackie seemed like she wasn't sure where to start and kept erasing her board. After 2 minutes, she said to the class, "Boards up, done or not."

The students all held up boards, Ben noticed some of them were totally wrong. No one feared being judged or made fun of. He could see Rey scan the room, and she said, "Boards down," and they did. He noticed she didn't give any feedback, she just moved on. She turned to the board and showed the proper solution. Some kids said aloud, "ahhh!" realizing they used the wrong model, and some were still oblivious. She presented another problem and watched them work again.

When she finished she asked for whiteboards to be cleaned up and the students quickly transitioned to sitting back on the carpet. Rey started teaching them about multiplying mixed numbers using the area model. She would randomly interject students names to ensure everyone was listening. Her lesson lasted maybe 15 minutes total. She showed them a slide that looked like gibberish and they all got up to transition. Poe came in and sat down at the blue table shaped like a horse shoe.

Several students sat down with him and took their worksheets. Several students went to another table and sat down with Rey, they all had journals in hand. The last of the students were retrieving chromebooks and logging into a program, randomly scattered around the room. He sat between Rey and Poe trying to listen to both teachers. Poe was focused on two students at his table, reviewing basic multiplication using the area model with them. The rest of his students were working in pairs and checking in with him periodically. He turned his attention to Rey, who was sitting with 3 kids working on breaking down the lesson she had just taught into step by step instructions. The rest of the students at her table were giving her their journal every so often and she was giving check marks or asking them to try again. Ben took this opportunity to sit at Rey's table and see if he could help.

"I can check your problems," he said to the other 5 students not working so dependently with Rey. They started to bring their journals to him and he found this was the easy part. Interacting with these kids and helping them really just felt right. It felt even more right doing it next to Rey. She looked up to him and mouthed, "thank you!" and kept working with the small group. About 15 minutes later, he heard a small chime go off. The students instinctively got up, rotated centers, and got to work. The three students that Rey was working with were now working with Poe, the two students Poe was working with were on the computer, and Rey had 2 more in a small group with her. This continued on until Math was over.

"Line it up for Art," Rey spoke to the students. They wrapped up their last center and lined up at the door. The students followed Poe out the door and Rey sat down. "What did you think?" she asked Ben.

"That was the most efficient teaching I've ever seen," he replied.

"The students seemed to really like you," she responded, deflecting the compliment.

"Well I really liked them, too," he replied, blushing slightly.

"I have a couple of questions," he stated.

"Shoot!" said Rey, looking at him intently.

They spoke both and forth for a few minutes, Rey noticed when Ben spoke he looked at her. Not just made eye contact with her, but looked at her, saw her. There was an intensity in everything he does, even without meaning to. Rey wasn't sure if she loved it or felt intimidated by it, or both.