My First Writing Critique

What I Grew to Understand

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My second-grade teacher, Mrs. Schneider, had a classroom organized like no other teacher in the school. I am sad to say none of my other teachers nor any of my children’s teachers adopted similar methods. I never again encountered such a setting. This seems like a tragedy. For me, Mrs. Schneider’s classroom was the ideal learning environment. I thrived in 2nd grade.

Instead of assigning her students seats and teaching her students as a class, Mrs. Schneider arranged her classroom into activity stations. Each station had a task for students to complete. Throughout each day, we students rotated from station to station. My memory claims we all moved at our own pace, doing assignments in whichever order we chose, but I can’t be sure that’s true. My adult mind sees potential problems; more structure must have been necessary. Either way, I know I felt content in that classroom.

Mrs. Schneider was always available to answer our questions, though sometimes we had to wait in line at her desk. Once I asked her how to spell nother. The resulting conversation went something like this:

“Say that again, Janet.”

“How do you spell nother?”

“I don’t know that word. Can you use it in a sentence?”