Blog 4

Megan Cronin
Dr. Ellis

Blog 4

As I had some trouble with the start of service learning, I have only been to Tunbridge a few times. Even though I haven't known the students for very long, they already seem to be attached to me. There is one specific student who has taken extra care to make sure that I am always by her side. It doesn't matter what they are doing, or even what the directions were. She seeks me out and will grab my hand and tug me back to her table. Last week she even pulled out the chair next to her and pointed at it to indicate that she wanted me to sit next to her while she worked on her assignment. I try to help the teacher to keep the students on track as much as possible because I am an elementary education major and working with these students is great practice and experience for what I want to do down the road. Working with kindergarten has also made me realize that I want to learn more about working with older elementary school students in grades four and five.
When Frankenstien makes the monster in the book it reminded me of how people create monsters in their heads that they struggle to get rid of. Mental Health issues can be a representation of this monster.
Most of the kindergarten students that I work with have not experienced this monster. They are still at an age where there isn't peer pressure or societal norms to follow. These kids aren't in their own heads about what they are wearing or what they look like or act like. I can't say the same thing about the students that I work with at the Baltimore Lab School. I have noticed that some of the students there are constantly feeling the monster inside of their head telling them that they are doing something wrong, and it makes the student very anxious. The monster inside of their head was telling them that this new person in their classroom (me) was their to judge what they were doing and it caused the student to be say and not participate. I had to prove to that student that I was only there to learn so that I could be a better teacher in the future.
In the book Victor creates this physical monster, but also has some mental monsters. After his sibling is killed he has to deal with it and has to decide that killing himself is not the answer.