Hello everybody,
First of all, welcome back! Thank you for once again taking the time to read my blog.
In this entry I will be starting a child study, which starts with selecting two students to work with and describing some important aspects about them. Keep in mind that the students real identities need to be kept private and, therefore, I will be using different names instead of their real names; nonetheless, you will get to learn a bit about two students from the school that I am currently attending.
I have got to say that both students are remarkable in their own way. Each have their own qualities as well as weaknesses. The reason why I chose these two students is because they both stood out the moment I met them, for different reasons. They are quite different to be honest, which makes me even more excited to be doing this.
Let’s start with Noah, shall we?
Noah is twelve years old. He has been studying for a long time in the school and was described as kind, hard worker, driven, and greatly interested in learning new things and acquiring new skills.
The first thing that is noticeable about this particular student is that he truly stands out in each and every subject. He is not only a smart student, but he is also motivated to learn and responsible. One of his favorite subject is mathematics, although he likes most subjects.
When it comes to his social relationships in the classroom, Noah is always polite but a bit shy, too; nevertheless, very well integrated with his peers. Something worth mentioning is that he is is friendly and accepting of everyone. He never gets in trouble and he is friends with everyone.
Referring to his literacy and language skills, Noah has a good control over the use of the language and knows how to use both the formal and informal discourses. He is also good in English and knows how to express himself very well.
He comes from a high social-cultural and economic level. Both his parents attended university and Noah was raised by both of them equally.
The second student that I am going to introduce to you today is Mateo.
Mateo is a bit different from Noah. He is also very friendly and can be very shy sometimes. Nevertheless, he is very outgoing, which can sometimes result in Mateo being impulsive and mocking. To put it in simple words, He is the class clown. He always has something funny to say and loves making his peers laugh.
When it comes to personal interests, Mateo is not a big fan of school. He shows rather disinterest in studying and excelling in academics, do not get it wrong thought, he can be lazy but he is also very intelligent. He can be very organized and loves to keep his notebooks clean. His hobbies include playing video games and football. Even thought he is good friends with everyone, he can also get in misunderstandings and disagreements with his classmates every once in a while.
When it comes to his language and literacy skills, Mateo has a good use of the language, too. He tends to be polite when he needs to be and expresses himself well.
Referring to his family situation, Mateo comes from a more complicated background. Both his parents are foreigners but he was born in Spain. They have not been together since he was a baby so he does not have memories with both his parents. He lives with his father and his grandparents and his mother does not live in Valencia.
In case you are wondering why I chose these two students to work with, the answer is quite simple, honestly. One the one hand, Noah is a grade-A student. He seems to excel at everything he does which makes me curious about the way he processes information and the way he works. One the other hand, Mateo projects himself as a disinterested student, who does not care much about anything related to school. Although, if you ask me, he happens to have a complex and quite intelligent mind worth trying to understand.
Hopefully you have enjoyed reading this entry. Talk to you soon.
Best regards,
Mariana Soto Torres.
Hungry for knowledge 
Good afternoon, Mariana!
Congratulations on the descriptions you have made about these students. I don’t know them, but I can imagine how they are and how they behave in class because I have similar children in my class.
From my point of view, you have made an excellent election because you have chosen very different students. In fact, I have done the same in order to improve my teaching skills and to challenge myself in different ways. I think analysing their progress will be very interesting because they are quite different.
On the one hand, Noah, although he already gets good marks, I think your intervention will be excellent for him because this kind of children need more knowledge and challenges (apart from the ones that are in the book or in the ordinary lesson) in order to learn more and to improve as much as they can. Hence, I think it is a good idea to examine and help him.
On the other hand, I believe that choosing Mateo has been a great idea as well because he has intelligence, but he lacks interest. Moreover, social and cultural background influence a lot in children’s education, and it is interesting to analise it.
To conclude, I think your election is perfect and you will learn a lot as a teacher and as a person. In my opinion, it will be excellent for you to create and review your own theory-in-use and your philosophy of teaching. In addition, both students will be very lucky because you will help them as much as you can and I am sure they will improve their English level a lot and, what is more important, they will grow as people.
I’m looking forward to reading your next posts!
A hug,
Mar
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Hello Mar,
Thank you so much for your comment and for reading the entry, as well as for giving me feedback. I am glad to know that, through my writing, you were able to imagine the students.
Just like you wrote, I completely agree with the fact that it was important to challenge ourselves when it came to electing the students and I am glad to read that you went in a similar direction as I did; I am sure you are going to learn a lot from your study as well.
Once again thank you for your words. I hope that I will be able to help both Noah and Mateo, just like you expressed.
Best regards,
Mariana Soto Torres
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Hello Mariana!
It is really great to read your blog again! I loved that you have the caution to keep the students’ real identities in this child study project.
It is good for you to choose different types of children because you can make a contrast with them and learn from both profiles.
First, I have to say that is interesting for you to have Noah’s profile to investigate his works. Because you have the perspective of a motivated student and you can see how he is getting motivated to do things in class. Also, his family support him and this is a good point for him.
Furthermore, knowing things about Mateo it could be very useful for you and your future as a teacher. Because, he comes from a completely different family than Noah. It may be good that he has a very good relationship with his peers, although it may not be so good for him to be the class clown, because that can distract him a lot. But so, you can observe what their different behaviours are because you have also commented that they have quite a few disagreements. Having a complicated background can influence her education as you said.
Your final reflection is very honest and I hope you enjoy and learn a lot about them.
It is really good for me to comment your blog because I am in the same class as your students and I can observe the same as you and compare both of us our students in this project.
Best regards,
Maria
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Good Afternoon Maria,
Thank you so much for reading this entry, as well as for leaving a commenting giving me feedback.
Just like you expressed in your comment, it will be interesting seeing the learning process through Noah’s perspective as much as it will be interesting seeing Mateo’s way of processing knowledge. I am sure that you agree with me on this, considering that you chose two similar cases. Hopefully, through this study we will learn so much more about the students attitude towards learning and their source of motivation.
I am looking forward to keeping you updated and to reading more about your own experience and study case.
Best regards,
Mariana Soto Torres.
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