Ask the elementary school teacher

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

A little background:

This is my 18th year teaching elementary school. In that time, I’ve taught at one of the smallest schools in Missouri and in one of the largest districts in California. I’ve taught every grade from 1st (five years) through 5th (11 years total, including combos), though my second grade experience was limited to just one year. I’ve spent a little time as a substitute and teaching summer school. I also currently moonlight at the local university teaching children’s and adolescent lit.

I welcome any and all inquiries into my chosen profession. I may not be able to answer questions until after school tomorrow, but I will do my best to answer all questions.

2

Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?

:wink:

My questions: what percentage of your kids do you think you remember? And why do you remember them? Is it that you remember the ones you really liked, and really didn’t like, or…?

And when you see them, later on…when you run into them ten years later (b/c I’ve run into a couple of my elementary teachers and they remembered me) what do you say to them?

And how many lives do you know you’ve touched with your work?

3

I have a reputation among students who haven’t been in my class for being “mean”, which sometimes does refer to a mean person, but most often is studentspeak for “strict.” Students who are actually in my classes tend to enjoy them quite a bit, though.

I remember every single student from my first year teaching. I can list them by name, tell you about their work habits, who was good in which subjects, and with a little effort could probably list all nine students of the month.

Recent students, those gone from my class for a year or two, I can get names and a general impression of what they were like about 90% of the time.

Most other students I can usually recognize the face, but someone has to supply a name for me.

The ones I remember best tend to be the truly outstanding students or those who had something really unusual about them; those that were behavior problems tend to run together after a year or two, and the quiet ones who just did their work without muss or fuss tend to be most easily forgotton.

It’s remarkably like seeing an old schoolmate after that much time. I ask them how things are going, are you enjoying school (if their age is appropriate), but mostly they want to do most of the talking, and my part of the conversation consists of answering questions.

It’s hard to quantify. I usually have one or two students each year that I know I hit the head on the nail with–students who for whatever reason came into my class behind or uninterested or disaffected, who I then send on to middle school eager for what comes next. I think that I’ve made a significant difference in the lives of those 20 or 30.

I’m sometimes surprised by a former student whose face seems familiar, but whose name and personality have been lost to me, who seems to have such vivid memories of things that I’ve done so many times that any individual instance has faded from memory, so including those, I think the number may be a bit higher.

I think most people have much more vivid memories, and tend to come into contact with that one teacher who really affected them in a profound way later in secondary school or college.

4

Are there any teachers where you work who are out of the closet? The gay teachers I know here tend to stay in the closet most of time.

What was your most unusual student like?

5

Explain to me how I can ‘work the system’ to get the best education for my son. (I’m new to the whole kid-in-school thing) Should I become the squeaky wheel, or will I just be seen as a pain in the ass parent? (as it is I speak with the teachers about once a month)

What are the warning signs to a parent that a teacher is only in it for the paycheck? (I know that they are under pressure to produce through grades, but how frequently are kids left behind/struggling because the teacher needed to focus on the kids who ‘got it’ easily?)

Sorry for the hard questions, I’m not trying to be mean or anything, those are just the ones I have right now.

6

How much time do you spend at home doing things such as grading papers, preparing lesson plans, etc.? How much personal time do you really have?

What do you do during the summer months? As a kid I thought teachers got three months off just like we did, but of course I know this isn’t the case. I’m just curious how much work you do once the kids leave for the summer and how much you have to do in preperation for the coming year.

Do you find some classes to be better than others? Some teachers have told me that in some years they are blessed with a class of well-behaved angels and in other years they get stuck with all the brats from hell.

How much does it affect you emotionally to see a student whom you know has a difficult life at home? Do you worry about the welfare of your students as if they were your own children?

How often does the time spent on discipline and maintaining order in the classroom significantly affect time spent on teaching lessons? Have you ever had to forego a lesson or change lesson plans because of an overly unruly class? (at times I worry that I may have missed out on some fundamentally important lesson I should have learned and never did, all because of some kids who decided to set off the fire alarm that day).

What is the worst thing a student has ever done to you or have witnessed a student doing? Do you worry that a student who doesn’t like you will find out where you live and seek reprisal on you or your property outside of school?

Since you have been teaching for 18 years, what are the biggest changes you have observed in this time?

What issues do you most often deal with that affect or involve boys more or girls more?

Lastly, if there was one thing you could change about the education system (either within your school or on a national level) what would it be?

I hope I haven’t given you too many questions to digest at once.

7

Oh and here’s a silly one too:
When I was in elementary, if any food items given to a teacher they would almost without fail raffle it off to a student. We were happy at the chance of extra sweets at the time, but now I wonder: were they scared that they would get the ‘special’ cupcake?

8

How much “academic freedom” (choice of what to teach, or even what to say in class in the process of teaching what you’ve been told to teach) do you have? Is it an issue for you? If not, is it because of the age of your students? Would it be more of an issue with older kids (& has it been when you had older kids, assuming you have younger kids now)?

9

We have a male teacher who is assumed to be gay by nearly everyone who has much contact with him, and who claims to constantly have guys hitting on him, but isn’t gay. I don’t know of any openly gay teachers here, so if there are any, they must still be in the closet.

I had a boy who was so emotionally erratic that one day he’d run up to me and give me a hug, and the next spit at me for reminding him to do his assigned work. He routinely would tell me he hated me, only to beg not to be put into another class for a time out. He could cry at getting a B on a paper and celebrate a D- the next day. He’d be Bart Simpson one day, Lisa Simpson the next.

10

Read with your child every night and talk about what you read. Read to them until they can read themselves, then have them read to you.

Keep in contact with your child’s teacher about anything that concerns you regarding your child’s education.

Make sure you know exactly what your child is expected to do for homework, and what work is being done in class.

Make sure your child brings home any and all work that the teacher has corrected and returned to the child, then take the time to look at it with your child. If he/she has a backpack, go through it every night. If the child isn’t bringing home homework and corrected work, contact his/her teacher to find out why. Praise good work and achievement, and discuss how the child can do better in areas where he/she might be struggling.

If you have a concern, take it directly to the teacher first. Many teachers get defensive if you go directly to the principal with a problem. If you cannot resolve the problem through the teacher, then go to the vice principal, counselor, principal, etc.

When you come to the school with a concern, do your best to project a calm, reasonable attitude. Be ready to work together to find a solution. If there is a serious concern that may require an extended time to talk, call ahead to set up a conference time. Be on time to the conference. Parents who pop in with angry demands seldom get the results they would like.

If you can request a certain teacher (this differs from school to school) it’s sometimes possible to learn “through the grapevine” which are the better teachers and request them. Some schools, however, can be hostile to such requests, so find out early if this is done at your school and if it is, make your request early. Most schools are hesitant to switch classes around after the year begins.

In some schools, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, in some parents can get labled troublemakers.

It’s possible to be “in it for the paycheck” and still do an adequate job, and for a teacher to have the right motivations, but still not possess the requisite job skills. But of course, you don’t want an adequate teacher, you want a good teacher.

New teachers seldom lack the proper motivation, but you’ll find veteran teachers who have lost the enthusiasm for learning but don’t have the energy or motivation to find other work. These are the ones you’re talking about.

Does the teacher have the students do a lot of busy work?

How much corrected work does the child recieve back from the teacher?

How much time does the teacher spend actively instructing children? It’s easy to spend all of your time talking, and likewise easy to spend very little time instructing and have the children doing busy work. Neither is a good way to teach.

When the teacher passes out a worksheet, does he/she take a break to grade papers or circulate around the room to give extra assistance to those needing it?

When reading in a subject area is assigned, does the teacher take time to discuss with the class the important information they should get from their reading, or does the teacher assume that assigning the reading is the same as teaching the material?

Lazy teachers tend to give a lot of easy busy work and then not correct it or give feedback. At higher levels, lazy teachers tend to be lecture and test.

Teachers are usually under pressure to produce through good scores on end of the year standardized tests. Grades are almost always determined by the teacher, and the teacher is seldom judged on that basis.

Teachers who focus on one ability level tend to focus on the low-average students because this hits the largest number of students. Some teachers do tend to merely “cover the material” regardless of whether the children are learning it. Teachers who do this usually fit into the “Doing it for the paycheck” category.

When there is a rigid pacing schedule, either set by the district, school, or teacher, students who don’t “get it” right away tend to be left behind. Reteaching material that hasn’t been mastered yet takes time, which can upset those carefully maintained pacing charts. Providing enrichment for the quicker learners can take extra effort, and the desire to put forth that effort differs from teacher to teacher.

I didn’t see anything mean about your questions. There are lazy and incompetent teachers, and students can get left behind. Pretending that doesn’t happen would be foolish.

11

I don’t do those things at home. When I leave for the day, I’m done with work. However, I routinely arrive at 7:00am and leave at 6:00pm on days I’m not teaching a night class at the university. That makes for an extra hour (off the clock) before school and two to three after. I’ll usually put in a few hours Saturday morning, especially if Mrs. Six is working a Saturday morning shift.

I get home at about 6:30 most nights, which leaves me with about 5 hours of personal time each day. I have my Saturday afternoons and all day Sunday to myself.

We have one duty day after the kids leave to pack up our rooms, change textbooks or other materials, etc, and that’s about all it takes.

I teach two classes at the local university–Children’s Lit and Adolescent Lit. These are daily classes in the summer, M-Th.

I’ll usually spend my office hours at the University doing prep work for the coming year when I not conferencing with students, which is most of the time. It takes me about a week of full 8-10 hour days before the first duty day to get my room ready and set everything up for the first quarter. Some teachers take a couple of weeks, some take a couple of days.

Each class seems to develop it’s own personality pretty quickly, and there can be a big variety. One group can be eager beavers and the next whiners and excuse makers.

It’s difficult. I’ve read some heartbreaking stories written as personal narratives, and had students share truly horrific stories in the same manner as most of us tell about our new dryer or the interesting movie we saw this weekend. It can be a bit daunting to realize that, for some students, I’m the only stable adult in their life.

No. I care about my students, but more about my family. It does seem, sometimes, that I care more for the welfare of certain of my students than their own parents do.

Discipline, procedures, expectations of proper behavior, and consequences are the only subjects the first day of school. They are revisited every day the first few weeks. This is time that cannot be spent on reading or math, but it is necessary to create an atmosphere in which disruptions will be at a minimum.

After the first few weeks, significant disruptions occur a couple of times a week, and many small ones every day.

So a little time every single day has to be used to maintain order and discipline, but most days that little bit is enough.

It happens. When it does, I make sure that I cover the material that should have been covered in that time by leaving out something less important or distilling out the most important points and emphasizing those.

The worst thing an elementary student has done is attack several of my first grade students as they left school because I disciplined him the day before and he got suspended as a result. He staked out the school the next day, and targeted the students he saw me escorting to the front of the school.

A college student once slashed my tires because he failed one of my courses.

Nope.

  1. There’s a much bigger emphasis on standardized test scores than there used to be.

  2. Grade inflation–many parents now get upset with a C on a report card.

  3. Standards are changed by adding to the curriculum rather than substituting, resulting in an “inch deep, mile wide” curriculum.

Boys: Playground violence, threats of violence, physical bullying.

Girls: Exclusionary cliques, arguments over who is friends with whom, and social stigmatization (emotional bullying). Girls tend to hold a grudge longer than boys.

I teach longitudinally (I get students as third graders, and teach that same group grades three through five), and I’d like to see this same system used more widely.

I would greatly increase the standards for becoming a teacher, and commensurately increase the salaries, especially in those states that have truly crappy pay. Better candidates, better compensation.

I answer a thousand questions a day. Your dozen isn’t that much extra.

12

I’m not sure what you mean by a “special” cupcake. I usually eat anything that seems appetizing, and will, as you say give away anything else.

13

Number six –

Nice answers. My question: what’s the attitude of most public school teachers towards the Montessorri method?

Best regards,

Mooney252

14

The district sets the curriculum based on a set of state issued standards, and I’m required to teach that curriculum. The standards are often pretty vague, though, and I get to teach the curriculum pretty much however I can do so most effectively.

No.

You’re right in assuming that the curriculum in earlier grades is a bit more rigid than with older kids, but the teacher has a huge amount of freedom in deciding how to teach the material. I teach in a somewhat unusual situation in that I have my students for three years at a time, so I can plan differently. When I get them at the beginning of third grade, I’m looking forward to what they need to know and be able to do at the end of fifth grade, and can plan my long term lessons accordingly. This allows me to skip things that are repeated from one grade to the next, do a lot of mastery teaching, spend a lot more time doing foundation teaching before going on to advanced skills, and combine and expand certain curricula. I still teach everything required, but by having thirty months with the same set of kids instead of ten, I can get a lot more done with them than three seperate teachers, each of whom has to start fresh every year.

When I taught in a small school district in Missouri, I was the entire fifth grade faculty of the school district. I wrote the curricula for my classes, and could change it as I saw fit, so long as I addressed state standards. Therefore, the curriculum was whatever I decided it should be.

With a large district, such decisions are made at the district level. Teachers are told what to teach, but have a great deal of freedom in deciding how to teach it.

15

My understanding of Montessorri is somewhat limited. Please forgive any apparent mischaracterizations.

There are aspects of Montessorri education that I think are wonderful, such as appealing to all of the senses and providing real experiences. The classroom should be a learning environment, not just a place where students recieve knowledge from the teacher. The discovery method of teaching can do an excellent job of creating new knowledge for students. Allowing student interests to shape some of their learning is a good motivator. These things should be incorporated into any good classroom.

My one quibble with Montessorri would be a lack of emphasis on direct instruction. My teaching methods are eclectic, but tend to most closely resemble the Madeline Hunter model, which is direct instruction centered, but IMHO goes a little too far in that direction.

I don’t know what most public school teachers think; it isn’t a subject that’s ever come up in any conversations I’ve had.

16

Thanks so much for the answers, I’ve already printed this thread so I have the tips on hand. (We know about the reading everyday bit, and we try but usually only get 4 days a week, it gets easier as the younger sibs get older and less fidgety)

p.s. By ‘special cupcake’ I meant one that something not very nice might have been done to it.

17

We’d had our daughter in a Montessori school for the first 3 years of elementary school. When she went to public school in 3rd grade, she went from a self-directed program of work to one where the class did everything together. Children were told when to take out a book; when to read; when to put the book away. It was enormously frustrating for her.

The teacher here in the state of Washington contended that most children couldn’t manage a study program of their own. We obviously felt that the school was missing an opportunity to teach the kids to manage their own work.

Thanks for the comments.

18

Mooney252: I hope you find a school that matches your daughter’s learning style. Some students are incapable of managing their own work program, while others, such as your daughter apparently, can do so quite readily.

Any program in which everyone does everything together (by this I assume you mean whole class) is overly rigid and is going to miss, bore, or frustrate some students. Outstanding teachers tend to reserve whole class instruction for the introduction of new material and summative activities.