In ‘21, I retired from teaching (public elementary school)…spent most of my 21 years teaching 4th grade. A second career—at 38, our 3 yr old daughter died suddenly (complications from cerebral palsy)…life changing of course, and prompted my career change.
I’d been commuting an hour each way, working my @@s off, dealing with state budgets/legislation; 5-200+ staff reporting directly or indirectly to me (depending on the position)…had been thinking I was doing the “right thing” providing for my family. Our son was almost 5, and realized that I’d spent very little time with him to date. So…went in search of a more meaningful day, and a shorter commute.
Went back to school—Master’s in Education + fully cleared multi-subject teaching credential—was hired/asked to stay on after student teaching—set foot in my first classroom at age 40. I’ve purposely never taught where I live…I used the valuable 30 min (each way) commute time, to pre-play/replay the day…decompress returning home.
Spent my 21 years in three schools…
Yr 1-3…highly affluent/maximum parent support/newly built school
Yr 4-10…extremely low income/high crime/inner city-type surroundings/minimal parent support
Yr 11-21…low income, safe/country surroundings, many students/parents feeling very “entitled”…moderate support
Immediately found my organizational mgmt expertise highly useful; could quickly decipher what’s important (vs time-wasting) and for those first 3 year’s, I thought managing a class of 34 (9 year old’s)…was a piece of cake! Ha! Didn’t realize at the time…my very actively involved, well-educated parents were scaring my kids into good school behavior, and “cleaning up” my (ineffective at times) teaching at night! Enjoyed my time there, but small district, budget cuts (and my low seniority) sent me looking for another district.
I walked into a new (large) district HR with my degree’s/credential paperwork, 3-years experience, and ask them if I could teach at their most difficult/challenging school…the one they have a hard time keeping staff there? lol immediately hired!
First week my car was key’d; student threw his desk at me; gun shots heard while on the playground—rushing hundreds of kids (crawling) to safety. Also that first week, a young girl came to me in tears…saying she couldn’t finish (my not very meaningful) homework assignment…there’d been a loud party/drug raid at her apartment complex, she’d been using a flashlight in her closet trying to do the homework, and the batteries went dead. I looked at her—knew it was legit. Have long understood I had a privileged upbringing…but after that week, I realized some schools didn’t work like I thought they all worked. Yea, it was my 4th year, but I became a legit teacher that week (as well as detective, social worker, and life-coach)…but DID find a meaningful day. : )
Fortunately, I had a Principal that “got me”…understood the plight of these kids, and allowed me great latitude to be creative with my teaching methods—ended with the highest test score growth at our school that year.
State of my 4th grade class there:
•25% class turnover within the school year; reading ability range=K to 8th; math ability range=1st to 4th; only 6 (of 34) parents involved; 12+ were unreachable by phone, 1 living out of a car.
•regularly tracked down MIA parents on my time—met them on their work breaks (Target, Donut shop, wherever) for quick conferences/signature…most were working 2-3 jobs. A lot of frustrated, angry kids.
•for those parents who dropped their kid off, I’d wait out front of school—literally walking backwards in the car line with a clip board (driver window rolled down) 1-2 min conference/signature…
•one student’s mom was a “street worker” (super nice student, who always told me about yet another “uncle” that came to visit) Each semester, I’d literally go meet mom at her street location, for a short conference and signature. Btw, she was the nicest mom—tough life story—was doing her best to take good care of her 2 kids (both respectful kids, always well-fed/well-kept appearance) She felt embarrassed to come around school…very appreciative that I’d take the time to communicate with her.
•offered unpaid 90-min/after-school tutoring, 4 days/week.
Unfortunately, District decided to close that school, so moved to my last school for the 11-21 yrs…
Eh…3rd school was just ok. Parents were involved, but would often scream at/blame teachers…didn’t take any responsibility for their kids poor behavior, etc….all the issues mentioned in earlier posts here. A lot of feeling “entitled” behavior; still the wide variance of skill levels within the class, but less class turnover.
No question I would’ve stayed at Yr 4-10 school…forever! The kids longed to be kids, and often expressed their life-circumstance frustration in many different ways. Most of the lack of parent involvement, was due to heavy parent work schedules—multiple low paying jobs. My 9-year student may be taking care of 3+ siblings (by themselves) after school, until they all go to bed. Most wore the same clothes all week—just got dirtier each day. 6+ students walked in my room having not eaten that morning (arrived too late for free breakfast)… I fed my entire class daily, to disguise the students who really needed something in their stomach. If I wanted eager learner’s, I couldn’t ignore it…easy to see the behavior difference after eating.
Angry behavior? We always have a choice how to respond. Beginning of Yr 4, I gave a writing assignment to tell me about themselves, etc. Read/edited them overnight, and returned them for rewrite the following day. One young man (long history of behavior issues) wrote about me, calling me every name…f-word multiple times, etc. I purposely hadn’t edited his letter yet, but walked it over to his seat…got down to ear level, and quietly whispered “This is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever seen…you make some really great points. Let’s go over it together. When you said f__ you, Mr K…it’s spelled incorrectly. You need to add a “c”…so let’s put an insert mark with a “c” above it, then add a “c” on your next draft, to make it a four-letter word.” Tears started running down his face, and he eventually asked if he could just start over? Obviously, I said “sure”… I received back two writings—(1) a fabulous letter of apology (beautifully written—he was very talented) and (2) the assignment. Zero behavior issues from him, the rest of the year (accept when I had to use a sub teacher
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The real social work aspects weren’t addressed in my degree/certificate program. But, when you get in your classroom and close the door…these issues are real, can’t be ignored, if you’re expecting student success. Beyond food…a new overnight family crises, child custody fighting, worried about their (next week) housing future, no sleep…. I was called into court for my testimony dozens of times, to describe a child’s behavior/performance—lawyers seeking any day (or week) correlation to the parent custody schedule.
If their “head space” (and stomach) aren’t in the right place..:the “lid” on their brain isn’t open to receive any wisdom from me…that was for sure.
At my last school, I was quite surprised at how often parents would tell me I didn’t know ___! about teaching their kid, even in my final years—with a great reputation around our school clientele. Taking the “high-road” when responding, was difficult many times…….but on the flip side, a surprising number of parent-teacher conferences were spent answering sincere parent questions—about HOW to parent their kid (vs discussing their child’s report card…)
In the end…kids are still kids at heart—some deal with a lot of stress; old math still works—educator’s are always trying to reinvent the wheel though; old reading strategies still work—more educator’s trying to reinvent the freak’n wheel; but writing…looked more like texting.
I chose to ignore the politics, funding issues, who’s to blame, etc…just dealt with each student’s academics and given home-life situation as I encountered…their reality. Fully admit, coming into the education game later in life—with more perspective, and financial foundation…was advantageous.
A lot of very talented young teachers struggling with classroom management, minimal experience to date, no financial resources, afraid/aren’t in a position to simply ignore or question WHY we’re being asked to do something that’s been effectively working…a crazy new way?! : )
To be a good teacher requires more than command of the material. Good communication skills are essential. One of the search committees to find my successor had one candidate whose communication skills were so poor that the people viewing the presentation immediately knew there was no way that person could communicate clearly with faculty or students, never mind the committee. A second committee had to be formed.
