|
For first-year teachers, an age-old problem: how to do more in less time
By Meredith Carlson Daly
Early one cold December morning before the bustle and routine would claim
Classroom 5 at Potomac Elementary School, new fourth-grade teacher Naomi Rubinstein
and her colleagues huddle around a small table to confer about students, teaching
and its demands.
Ellen Winston, a veteran resource specialist at the school, pops into the
meeting to give the team of fourth-grade teachers—most of whom are new to
the school—some keen advice: “Do not think about this over the [Christmas]
break,” Winston says.
She fears Naomi and her colleagues are trying to do too much—a trademark
pattern of beginners Winston remembers well from her first year in 1990. “I
don’t care how long it takes me, I’m going to grade and put a comment on every
single paper,” she says.
But after 15 years of teaching Winston has learned some time-saving tricks
and finds herself in charge of guiding a new generation
of teachers as they embark on implementing the ambitious,
constantly changing curriculum of hard-charging school
superintendent Jerry D. Weast.
“As first-year teachers you’ve done so well,” Winston tells the crew of five
that includes Nancy Cupido of Potomac, a new public school teacher who comes
with eight years of teaching experience at the Woods Academy in Bethesda.
“But it takes a toll,” Winston says.
Winston and other school specialists see their job as relieving that toll
for the crop of new teachers—minimizing the 70-hour work weeks by offering
tips on how to teach more in less time.
Naomi and her peers feel the pressure of a new reading and math curriculum,
unveiled only last year and still being adapted. They know that Weast’s philosophy
of “differentiated learning” requires them to teach each student at a level
that is appropriate for them.
But in practice that translates into somewhat of a Houdini act for teachers—applying
different styles, teaching in both small and large groups, challenging those
students who demand acceleration, while not pushing other students too hard.
Naomi worries that pushing her students too hard will turn them off.
“I don’t want to give these kids ulcers,” she tells
her colleagues during the weekly team meeting.
These hour-long sessions give teachers a chance to ask specific questions
about students, share data and offer suggestions. Naomi
tells Monica Weisser, the school’s reading specialist,
that one boy in her class is not even on a “P” level,
the beginning stage for fourth grade, despite her various
attempts to get him on track.
“He just keeps saying, ‘I don’t get it,’” Naomi says. “I’ve never put anyone
up for special education screening before, so maybe it’s just my inexperience.
I just thought something should be glaring, should jump out at me. He is a
silent struggler. How can I get him some help?”
A colleague suggests she give the student more time to read and re-read the
segments he is having trouble understanding. But Naomi shakes her head from
side to side, registering that this strategy hasn’t worked.
Winston speaks with authority, a trait this crew is still acquiring. Perhaps
the student’s problem is more emotional—a lack of confidence. He’s developed
a bad habit of waiting to hear directions two or three times.
“Why don’t you suggest he listen carefully that first time?” Winston suggests.
“Ask him to write down what he understands. It’s important to give students
some responsibility for learning, for listening.”
A month after the holiday, in mid-January, Naomi still is working with the
youngster, getting him extra help and intervention. Winston’s strategy hasn’t
worked yet, she says, but she’s still working on it.
“She does not give up,” Principal Linda Goldberg says of Naomi. “She’s persistent
and extremely reflective. That is the kind of teacher you want.”
Goldberg remembers there were few other options for women decades ago, when
she entered the field of teaching. “You either became a nurse, a secretary
or a teacher,” she says.
Naomi and her colleagues, one of whom, Hollie Edwards of Rockville, is a
former certified public accountant, have chosen this career. Naomi left a
six-figure Wall Street job and got a master’s degree in education so she could
become a public school teacher. It’s a decision she says she doesn’t regret.
“I love this,” she says. “I didn’t love that.”
Meredith Carlson Daly is a freelance writer living in Silver Spring.
|
