My son this year has a teacher that just lets the class run wild. I am not really thrilled with her teaching methods as she does not provide very much structure in a class that very much needs some. She has a class that is about ¾ boys and of these boys I would say at least half have difficulty with attention and keeping still. Many of these boys have low IQs and are struggling in school. I really think that although her teaching methods are not bad, I think that in this particular class she really needed to adapt her teaching style and classroom set up a little bit. At the end of each day, I go in to pick up my son, who is not struggling with attention and a very good student. There are kids everywhere. Even when I enter the room while she is still instructing, some of the kids are sliding across the floor. She says that some of these kids have had tough lives and that is why she tends to be so lenient with them, but I think that she is truly doing them a disservice to allow them to behave like this in the third grade. I know the fourth grade teachers are not going to be thrilled with these behaviors that she has allowed, and these children in my opinion are getting a bit to old to be sliding across the floor.
For a while, at the beginning of the year, some of the other parents and me were discussing this and they were noticing as was I, that their children were sliding across the floors and crawling around at home. We were all really surprised that our kids were doing these things. The class has not gotten near as far in the areas of Social Studies and Science as the four other 3rd grade classes have, and we are all a little uneasy about how this will affect our students next year.
I do understand that each teacher has their own methods and teaching styles, but as some one who is looking forward to teaching in the future, I hope that I can adapt my style to fit the class that I am dealing with each year. I am watching as all the students in this particular class are suffering. I love the teacher, she is a really lovely person, but as far as her effectiveness with this particular classroom of children, it is definitely lacking something. I have also noticed that her methods are not serving her either, as most days by the end of the day, she looks like she is going to burst into tears and really seems like she can’t take much more. I feel for her, however, I also feel that she has created her own circumstances in this particular situation. I do think that there are good teachers out there that find it hard to adapt to the needs of their students. I do however think that this is probably the most important part of their job, to be effective for all their students and to adapt to each group as needed. I will use this as a lesson for myself in the future.
Posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008 8:06 PM by Carol Ann