For these are all of our children: Deerwood Elementary School

A few words from the late James Baldwin can sum up my experience at Deerwood elementary "for these are all of our children. We either 'profit by' or 'pay for' whatever they become" . I was afforded a good opportunity to partner with Deerwood elementary school's principal in order to prepare aspiring teachers to work in diverse settings. By all rights, Deerwood is considered a title one school. The students represented are from culturally diverse backgrounds, but the majority population is hispanic. The good thing about this experience is I get to volunteer with my students. The day was spent in a 3rd grade and 5th grade classroom working on math and reading skills. i also got to observe some of my university students in action. I have a class of 80 students. In the past, my students would volunteer at various sites in multiple school districts, so it was difficult to manage the quality of their service learning experiences. this partnership is an intentional strategy to monitor and assess students' preparedness to work in diverse settings. It is amazing to see how much the students at Deerwood enjoy working with UCF teacher candidates, and vice versa. Many of my students indicated that they would not have selected a school like Deerwood. Now, they get to see that parents send the best they have to our teachers and trust that the teachers will return their best. One of the most profound statements I heard today was "I don't know what I was thinking about a title one school, but kids are just kids. When I graduate, I want to work at a school like Deerwood, a school where I know they kids truly need me". I do not doubt that some schools are more challenging than others but I am a firm believer that if a teacher is ineffective with a certain population it's because he/she (1) does NOT want to work with that population or (2) can NOT work with that population. In most instances, the former statement is true.