California State Government Budget Deficit

¶ … working life of a grade school teacher. The author shadowed a first grade teacher for a full work week and then recorded her observations and findings. The author also included what the experience taught her and how the experience will be used in the future. There were five sources used to complete this paper.

Before I shadowed a first grade teacher for 40 hours I had a preconceived idea about what teaching grade school would be like. I knew that grade school teachers were responsible for teaching children to read, starting them off on the path to arithmetic and opening the world of Geography to them. In addition I knew that they were the only teachers who provided spelling tests and spelling knowledge for their students. I realized all of these things because of my own experience as a grade school student, years ago. What I didn't realize, when looking at it as a former student, is how much the teacher invests in launching the students for a lifetime love of learning. It was after shadowing the grade school teacher that I came to understand that it is those teachers who are largely responsible for causing a student to love learning or hate it. I realized after my experience that teachers at the grade school level are setting the stage for lifetime learning attitudes.

A learned that grade school teachers are expected to recognize the first signs of learning disabilities such as dyslexia (McNulty, 2003). During the week I shadowed the teacher she did send two children for early assessment testing because they were having a persistent difficult time with reading basics.

Another aspect of a teacher's life that I had not realized before was the mandatory reporting situation. If a teacher suspects child abuse in the life of one of her students she is mandated by law to report. This makes sense if blatant and obvious cases of abuse for the sake of the child (Truth, 1999). But during the week I shadowed this teacher we became suspicious but were not sure an abuse situation was occurring. The teachers explained the difficulty of this situation because if she reports her concerns and is wrong the child could be traumatized by parent reaction and develop a fear of school and teachers. However, if she does not report her concerns and the child is being abused the child is left in a bad situation. Grade school teachers have to watch for signs without being overly willing to report without solid concerns, because children are forever falling, or bruising themselves in every day life.

During my week shadowing the teacher I found that organization is the key to success in a grade school classroom. The teacher I shadowed teaches first grade. Each morning she arrives 30 minutes early so she will have quiet time to plan the day, check supplies, return parent phone calls and other tasks that cannot be done while the students are in class.

In that 30 minutes I watched her check her lesson plan, then return calls. After that she would prepare for any projects that would be done that day. After quick cup of coffee the bell rang for the children.

As the children entered the classroom the teacher greeted each student. I thought that was a nice idea because the students are still young and seemed to enjoy the teacher noticing them. This is different than a teacher at the middle school or high school level when students don't necessarily want to be noticed by the teacher.

The first thing the students did each day was turn in homework. The teacher had an interesting way of getting this done. While other classrooms were loud and the teacher had to yell over the din to get homework turned in, the teacher I shadowed had a music method. She played classical music for five minutes and that was the student time to get out homework, make sure their name was on it and walk it to the teacher's desk and place it in the homework basket.

Each morning the teacher followed the same subject order. She explained to me that with children this young there are still students who do not do well with changes in routine. She preferred to keep their routine as consistent as possible. Each morning they class did reading first. The teacher believed that was the most highly focused skill to learn and she preferred to teach it when the children's minds were fresh. Each day they held lessons in all subjects. In addition the class had singing time, reading story time and art. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were the days the teacher held one of each of these activities. On Tuesday and Thursday the class went to PE in the gym which provided the teacher with a planning period on those days.

The teacher was a believer in whole language learning. This meant that everything was taught in units. For the week that I shadowed her the topic was whales. This meant that every subject was somehow tied to whales. When we taught reading the class was read a story about whales and then they were asked to draw a picture of a whale. The spelling word had to do with whales. They included words such as gill, hole, water and others. Each of the subjects became tied to the topic of whales. The teacher explained to me that she believes teaching in this manner allows the students to understand in more concrete form why the subjects are needed.

When math was taught the teacher put problems on the board including what is one whale plus one whale? When it came to geography the teacher provided a lesson about where whales live and what parts of the world they are most prevalent in. During science that week there were films about whales and then there was a chance to study and feel parts of the whale through a science kit. I was lucky because there was a field trip planned during the week I was there. We attended a water museum in which whales were being featured in art and sculpture.