An End of the Year Reflection of a Student

You can't help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn't count.
-Winnie The Pooh

I have picked up this post from my classroom blog. Needless to say, I was very moved by this child's reflection. And judging by the flood of comments from other teachers (junior and senior school), as well as her peers, this child sealed my conviction as to why I am a PYP educator! This student's blog post is an example of solitary reflection combined with social interaction- the very purpose of blogging itself!

When this child joined our school, one of my colleagues in the administration department pointed out that she hardly spoke a word of English. And if she did, she was more comfortable talking in Telegu, her mother tongue. I wish to praise the whole school's attitude towards learning and empowering children. It made me feel that the onus of making  a difference in my students' lives did not rest on my shoulders alone. We, as a school community, are collectively responsible for educating the students. Not only am I proud of this child, I am overwhelmed by my professional colleagues. Each one of them played a crucial role in her development. Check out their comments.

My student's end of year reflection:

I am proud to be a PYP learner of Aga khan academy Hyderabad.
Which has learner profiles,concepts,AK strands,lines of inquiry,central idea.
And has good infrastructure and greenery.

This is a fantastic school for me. After coming to this school I know that I had to learn more and more.My dream was to go in a school where the teachers and students were kind,not to strict,and talk freely with me. My dream became real when I came to aga khan academy.

I loved the teachers there the way they speck and the way they teach.
For there the learning was fun with my friends.My teacher Ms.Naini I love hear she is like my best friend but she is a teacher some times she is angry with me because I do some thing wrong but I know that she is angry with be because she cares about me.I like all the teachers in the school especially miss Diana the kindness person in the school.

I liked all my units because there is some thing or the other special about it. I enjoyed simple machines a lot because we had to make a compound machine in real life. We also performed a Human machine which makes chocolate ice cream.

The summative was amazing in my old school it was like am going to die because ” there is going to be tomorrow” but in this school each and every summative was cool and to do with the unit like the simple machines
I told Ms.chloe our music and library teacher “oh my god see our library we have more then thousand books I would love reading all the books hole of my life.
In music she gave us all the chances to play each and every instrument.
She is a master in playing all the instruments.example: piano, flute, drums,
Xylophone.

We would do many experiments for our units.The things that help me to learn are computers and books. I know that it might be lakes and lakes to built our school and bring things like the things for making good infrastructure,greenery,books,laptops and ext. Our teachers and the staff has spent so much money. “thank you ever one”

Our reading stems are meta cognition,schema,making inferences,questioning,
Determining importance,visualising,synthesizing.
I read many books and I have come across 10,1000 words and with few of them I made sentences and it is important to use them.Its a good skill.

I have many goals to complete but I couldn’t complete them in year 4 but maybe in year 5 like spelling mistakes each and every sentences have spelling mistakes. I fell bad for that first I was good at spellings but now am a bit down.

These are some paragraphs about how I developed my confidence.

Do you know how I improved? Let’s read.
I was scared to talk front of the school or class
The reason I was to confident because I was scared and shy.
I was scared because some one will laugh at me or tell it is the wrong answer.
In my old school I would never never take a part on perform anything because I was shy.
I felt really bad In my heart no one scold me or beat me.
All my friends are confident and no shy.I would feel like am chucked out and not there.I have some knowledge but I cannot even share that.I thought it is not important to be confident,But when I came to aga khan academy I thought confident is the first most important thing in life.In my class 90% of people are confident.
When I had to talk about Gandhi i was prepared and ready to share about Gandhi and confident in my home. The moment I came to class I was horrified
And scared and not confident.I was nearly to cry and I was embarrass and nerves.But I plucked up the courage to talk I learned 20 lines and I told 2 lines and after that I told Finnish but I felt 2 lines wear not enough.
In the assembly I don’t know that for we’re the courage came from and I wanted to go first I was so happy that showed a bit of confident level impotent.
The unit heroes help to improve my confidence level.
In my heart I thought yes If I want i can do it.Know one laughed at me are or tell
Your information is wrong .This was the happiest moment.

And now I know that being confident makes me happy my teacher happy and my parents happy.I tryed and tryed to talk but when I as talking front of the class there is still water in my eyes.I loved sharing because i loved sharing I became a confident and not shy.
Now I am a confident learner I can perform,take a part,and share.
Now am so confident am so happy to be confident.
I know that to be wrong is ok but I tryed.
I know that to be confident is a best learning skill.
In my class each student and me are confident learners.
100 over 100% are confident.
I had a good year with you ms.naini thank you for teaching us.

Thank you for reading my post.

Many ways to get to the top!

She obviously struggles with spelling high frequency words and basic sentence construction. To her it did not matter. What mattered most was sharing her thoughts and feelings. She did remember to write in paragraphs! But what is most important, is her self-confidence.

She has  finally found a 'voice' and has been able to express herself in English.  When I observed her first writing piece, it consisted of 2 to 3 sentences. Almost every second word was spelt incorrectly.

I am glad I did not let her spellings hinder her learning. I am happy that as an individual I was able to change a student's life. I am happy to be working in a community where my students' success stories are celebrated by everyone.

This photo is a metaphor for her success. She knows she has more mountains to climb. Her confidence will get her there. The learning never really stops, does it!

Photograph courtesy : http://www.123rf.com/photo_11974541_funny-illustration-of-young-climber-facing-trouble-climbing-a-mountain-cliff.html