Month: March 2021

This is an interview I did with another teacher a few years ago. I thought it may still be helpful for those of you who are new to teaching. This teacher has been teaching Special Education for 19 years now. She has taught Kindergarten, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 8th grade students. This interview is from 2014, so it’s a little old, but it helped me when I was starting out.

Interview:

1. Why did you decide to become a teacher? Are you happy with your decision?
   • I decided to become a teacher because I wanted to help a student population I knew. I wanted to help the at-risk students and to help experience school success. On certain days I am happy with my choice. Seeing the students light up when they get something or when they see their grades have risen makes me happy. There are other days when I’m not so happy because I’m stressed and what not. That stress is 100% non-student related. It is usually related to other people I have to deal with throughout the day.
2. What is most difficult about teaching?
   • The most difficult part about teaching is all the changes. With the constant change things can get stressful or redundant. Some examples of changes are buzzwords and lesson deliveries. Some changes are things that used to be taught years ago and they’ve brought them back as brand new ideas.
3. What is your favorite part about teaching? What is your least favorite part?
   • My favorite part about teaching is just being with the kids. I enjoy helping them succeed. My least favorite part of teaching is again all the changes, such as the new common core standards and evaluations.
4. How do you handle students who don’t seem to want to learn?
   • For students who don’t want to learn, the school that I work for has a program that consists of teams called seniors assistant teams. Each team picks one person to go to training sessions, after which each trained person gets together with their team and makes an intervention plan. With this plan we try to figure out what will motivate the particular student into wanting to learn. We also have a 3×3 method that we use, where we meet with the student and come up with three issues that the student is having, then we come up with five possible interventions for solving these issues. After a few days we meet again and then come up with three positives that have resulted from using the interventions for the students’ issues.
5. How do you encourage class participation? How do you engage parents who are inactive?
   • There are a variety of ways that I encourage class participation. One technique that I and another teacher I work with came up with is called my 2 cents. With this method each student gets two cards that look like pennies. They are required to use both of them by the end of class. In order to flip a card they have to participate in some way (raising their hands, answering questions, etc.). If they participate at least two times then they get what we call fast cash, which they can use to enter a big drawing we have later on. For those students who still don’t participate, because there are always some, we will go up to them individually and ask them questions for them to answer so they can flip their two cards over for their participation.
   • To engage parents, I send home an introduction letter in August. This letter will include information such as my name, email, how long I’ve been a teacher, the school(s) I graduated from, but it will also include more personal information such as my husband’s name and how long we have been married and stuff about my dog. I will also send home an attached survey for the parents to fill out, so I can get to know a little about them and the student as well. Another thing my school will do sometimes if a parent or parents are not showing up for IEP meetings, conferences, or returning calls or emails, is home visits. This doesn’t happen often, but every once in a while we have to do a home visit to get the parent(s) involved.
6. What is your approach to classroom management?
   • There are a variety of approaches I like to use when it comes to classroom management, but one in particular is a reward system. When I have my small groups, my IEP students, I will do an activity where the students get to play teacher. They each get to make up one rule, which are usually really difficult rules that no teacher would ever come up with. The students are geared towards what I want them to be doing and allows them a say in what is going on in the classroom with this task. This lets the students feel like they have part in the classroom management. When the students make the rules they get so many stickers for the rules and at the end of the class, once they have earned so many stickers they get a choice of what they want to do for the rest of the class period, whether it’s do a puzzle or read a book, it doesn’t matter.
7. What advice would you give a first year teacher? What do you wish someone would have told you prior to teaching?
   • My advice for a first year teacher is to use your mentor. Focus on how they are helping you and don’t be afraid to try new things. Also get to know people in the school you are working at. Figure out who you want to be around, who will help you, and who you should avoid.
   • What I wish someone would have told me prior to teaching is compassion is the key. People give teachers a lot of crap about having summers off, snow days, and other stuff. What they don’t realize is teachers need this time off. Working with students and dealing with parents and other people can be so emotionally exhausting. There are days where you will just lose your patience so easily with people after being at school all day. When I go home all I want to do is just be crabby for a little while. Teachers deserve these breaks they get; me and the other teachers I work with like to call them compassion days.