STUDENT SPOTLIGHT: Dutrow Elementary School Kindergartner Prince Jalilian
Responsible, caring student leader in his classroom
Posted: September 25, 2024
Prince Jalilian takes extra care with his schoolwork and the people around him.
As he made the transition from preschool to kindergarten this fall, his teachers in both grade levels have pointed to him as an example in their classrooms. Jalilian said he is enjoying elementary school.
"It's great because I like to play," Jalilian said. "I like my teachers. Every day, I like to play with blocks.
"I like to learn about numbers and letters and my ABCs."
Words used to describe Jalilian are kind, generous, helpful and friendly. He is known as the first student to help clean up, participate in activities and give a helpful hand to his fellow students and teachers.
"Prince is a leader in our classroom," said Shakia Dudley, fifth grade teacher at Dutrow. "If Prince is doing something, everybody wants to do it as well. Prince makes a ton of friends and everybody wants to follow Prince, sit next to him and play with him."
Ways Jalilian shows how much he cares are offering hugs, rubbing a crying friend's back or holding out a hand to help teachers up off the floor after an activity on the classroom carpet area.
"I like school and I take care of people - push in my chairs and then go to the carpet," he said, describing the classroom routines students are learning. "I like drawing stuff and I like doing my work."
About those blocks - they are Unifix Cubes, which students play with and count during the morning. Learning games are part of the lesson, and Jalilian said you can also use some of the cubes to make Transformers.
Transformers are his favorite toy and he's seen all of the movies.
"I like Transformers," Jalilian said. "I like building them at school. The other Unifix Cubes, you can stack and build."
He goes out of his way with others because it's important to take care of people, help them and share materials with them by making sure everybody takes turns, he said.
"He makes sure everybody lines up the right way," Dudley said. "He sits on the carpet the right way."
Jalilian is often the first one to get seated when students are called to the carpeted area for activities. So many classmates want to sit with him that Dudley sometimes has to arrange them to give everybody a chance to sit next to him and be friends with him.
Jalilian sometimes also serves as a leader to help students line up to get on the afternoon bus. He holds a sign for one of the buses, and makes sure everybody falls in line and follows him and stops and goes when they're supposed to for orderly boarding.
"He's a good, responsible student," Dudley said. "He does a lot of things to help take care of people."
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