A question for TEACHERS!

[Pin Wizard]

I'm curious how you would feel if this were you. There is a teacher at DS's school who has been there ever since her student teaching. After she graduated, they used her as a floater to fill in at whatever class needed it. She now has a permanent class this year...Pre-K3!!

I know that when I get done and start to teach, I don't want a three year old group. I would feel like a babysitter as opposed to a teacher, or at best, like a day care worker.

Anyone else?

 

[Pop Daddy]

I know here (both my sisters kids are teachers) you just want to get a permant job for teaching, then later get a good grade

 

[Crazy4mandms]

That is so funny that you say that because that is why I am unemployed this year! I just graduated in May and will be a sub this year. There were lots of jobs out there for PreK, but I soooo did not want to teach preK!! I subbed 3 days straight in a PreK room and HATED it!!! To me it seemed like babysitting, however, there is a lot of learning going on there and after those 3 days I had LOTS of respect for the PreK teacher!!!! I live in upstate NY and the budget cuts here have devastated the schools and have caused many cutbacks and layoffs and it is very difficult to find a teaching job. That newbie probably had no choice but to take it or stay a sub (which, substituting is a difficult job!!) and she probably took it just to get her "foot in the door". Or, I know lots of my fellow graduates who want to teach nothing but PreK or Kindergarten! As for me, I'm heading to the middle schools (call me crazy but the tweens scare me alot less than 3 and 4 year olds! ).
BTW, r u a non-traditional, adult student (you have kids)? I just graduated at the ripe old age of 35 and, after watching my oldest get on the middle school bus the other day and my second grader tell me that he doesn't need me to walk him to school anymore, I was so glad that I toughed it out and earned that degree and will have my (soon to be) career instead of sitting in an empty house all day waiting for the boys to return!!

 

[Blondy876]

and I teach 3-5 year olds, please believe me when I say I do a whole lot more than babysit. I lay the foundation for learning that they will need for a lifetime. I also teach social skills which are necessary in order to learn anything.

I make up my lesson plans every day and I can't carry them over from year to year because I have to base my plans on what interests the children. I work with the CST and therapists to make sure my children are getting all the help they deserve and need. I don't sit down all day long because in order for 3-5 year olds to learn I have to be with them and giving them new words and ideas all day long. I also have to be close by to introduce social skills when the need arises. Your right that it's not your typical teaching position where you get to sit behind a desk and hand out assingments, (don't flame me, I know there is a whole lot more to it than that) it's harder and worth every minute when you see that child that you have been working with have a lightbulb moment and finally get it.

I have a BA and master degree and it just upsets me that people think all I do all day is babysit. I didn't go to college and grad school to learn how to babysit.

If your friend is truely diappointed with the placement with the prek kids please tell her not to take it. Children need someone who is dedicated and loving and if your this upset about being placed with them they will know and respond accordingly.

Just my $.02

Jenn

 

[Pin Wizard]

Thanks for the heads up, PD!

Crazy...I'm definitely a non-traditional adult student with a 10 year old DS. A former coworker of mine taught for many years. She gave up teaching after having middle schoolers! She said she should have stuck with 4th grade. I have another friend who lives in TX. Her husband recently graduated (in his 50's) and was lucky enough to get 4th grade reading. She said that teaching jobs are hard to come by in TX. Here in FL they tell us there's a teacher shortage!

Thanks, Jenn! I have a loooooooooooooong way to go in school before I'm teaching. It's interesting to get your point of view. I'm not even sure I really want to teach. To be honest, I'd rather be a guidance counselor at the college level. After talking with the GC at my college, I question that also. He said I'd find an opening about once every 10 years. There are so few positions that these people stick with it as long as possible. Great...seems every career I've been interested in, I've been discouraged from going into it. In high school I really wanted to do stage make-up on actors in NYC...discouraged by the high school GC on that one since there's a limited amount of jobs? Well, what about the people doing it? It was just as competitive for them and they manged? Then when I went back to school this time, I was really interested in Psych. GC said I'd be in school at leat 7 years for that. (?????) Okay, what can I settle on? Teaching?

 

[Bella the Ball 360]

Teaching positions are for the most part dependent on availablity and union access. The trick (at least where I work) is to stay in an undesirable job until you hve enough seniority to know you can choose the grade you want and then not be bumped out of it due to lay offs or down sizing. I know someone with 18 years seniority and they were displaced (thier job no longer existed) and needed to go to bump somone at a lower level out of thier job. Not a nice position to be and it happens all the time or should I say every year. If you are low man on the totem pole all you can hope for is you have a job no one would ever want and that is how you build to professional status and then you can jump. Believe it or not it is a LOT more complicated than it sounds. Getting and holding a poisition (can only speak for my system) is kind of like doing Federal Income Tax there are so many loopholes and exemptions that one is better off just sticking it out till the position is secure.

 

[BrerMom]

Originally posted by Pin Wizard
I know that when I get done and start to teach, I don't want a three year old group. I would feel like a babysitter as opposed to a teacher, or at best, like a day care worker.

Anyone else?

If the three-year-old class is part of the school you want to teach in, you may want to reconsider the position. Getting the grade you want is so much more complicated than you would think. Sometimes getting your foot in the door is more important than which age or what subject.

Frankly, if you want to teach elementary, teaching three- and four-year olds is very important. I was an assistant preschool teacher while I was getting my degree. So much of my classroom management skills I learned teaching preschool. In the middle school, I do pretty well negotiating arguments between kids mostly because I had great training with three year olds. A group of 12-year-old girls that won't share a lunch table? Not that different from a group of three-year-old girls that won't share the kitchen area.

In elementary, most kids grasp a new concept all in one sitting. How about the slower kids in your classes? They learn one baby step at a time - just like three and four year olds.

I didn't know until I was teaching DS4 phonics how many steps there really are to learning the basics - and he's my third kid! A successful teacher in the schools can break complicated ideas down. If you need to teach elementary kids to read, what better way to learn to help struggling students than to observe preschoolers learn letters, sounds, and blending in slow motion?

 

[Cindy B]

I'm in the middle school as an aide right now, and tell you what, I would love the PreK's!

Right now I have special needs sixth graders... I was doing special needs seventh last year and that was challenging.. so far, I like 6th better.

There are some similiarities between Prek and middle if you can believe it.. I liked the example about lunch table... I see that all the time in the middle school.. Another example is talking in class, project work.. I see that in 6th grade and also 3 year olds!


As for guidance at the college level, I worked with that as well. I worked at a private Christian college for a while, and they did have a need.. they called them assessment advisors though. My bosses, the AA's or assesment counselors.(they were called that as well), also taught classes as well. My one boss was ABD (all but dissertation at the PhD level) and another boss had a doctorate degree.

 

[snuggles]

Might be a situation of getting your foot in the door then getting what you want later. I know in our system (I'm a paraprofessional and dh is a teacher) that is the only way to get a job sometimes.

 

[bobcat]

Teaching preschoolers is a demanding and exhausting job. I'm not sure I would be willing to take a preschool position just to get my foot in the door. I did quite a few pre-professional hours in preschools and while I learned a lot and had fun I know that I wouldn't be the best teacher day after day in that environment. I still take two weeks during the summer to teach safety city and I am more exhausted after that then the entire school year.

Like Blondy876 said there is so much more to teaching preschoolers than babysitting. There is a tremendous amount of learning that going on during that stage but it is taught differently than most other grades. People look at preschoolers and only see kids playing and think thats all there is. What many people don't understand is that is how preK children learn. Just because you don't see them working on math worksheets doesn't mean they aren't doing math.

BrerMom you hit it right on the head about the lessons you can learn from teaching preschoolers. I love my middleschoolers but there are days when I feel like they are acting more like prek and those life lessons come in handy.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by Bella the Ball 360
The trick (at least where I work) is to stay in an undesirable job until you hve enough seniority to know you can choose the grade you want and then not be bumped out of it due to lay offs or down sizing. I know someone with 18 years seniority and they were displaced (thier job no longer existed) and needed to go to bump somone at a lower level out of thier job. Not a nice position to be and it happens all the time or should I say every year. If you are low man on the totem pole all you can hope for is you have a job no one would ever want and that is how you build to professional status and then you can jump.

That is frightening!!

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by BrerMom
Frankly, if you want to teach elementary, teaching three- and four-year olds is very important.

Thanks for all the info, BrerMom!!

CindyB...I know the counselors at our college are also profs. Although I haven't come across their names as teaching anything in the catalog yet.

Snuggles...you're right! Some times it's hard enough just getting in the door. I'll keep that in mind.

I hear you, Bobcat! I'm not sure I could handle pre-K's all day!! I have somewhere between second and fourth grades in mind.

 

[jamsmom]

I am a certified teacher and will end up subbing this year because there were not any positions open by the time I got my application into the laocl disctrict. I am hoping by doing this that it will get my foot in the door for teaching the next year. I am scared that I will have to teach something under 3rd or 4th since I have no experience with that age.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by jamsmom
I am a certified teacher and will end up subbing this year because there were not any positions open by the time I got my application into the laocl disctrict. I am hoping by doing this that it will get my foot in the door for teaching the next year. I am scared that I will have to teach something under 3rd or 4th since I have no experience with that age.

This has been an eye opening experience hearing about starting out in teaching. It sure is more complicated and politcal than I expected.

 

[jamsmom]

I did teach from 1993-1995 and then left the teaching field to work for a a supplemental learning center.

I jujst hope that Jim and I can live together "cordially" between now and when I get a full time job.

 

[Pin Wizard]

Originally posted by jamsmom
I jujst hope that Jim and I can live together "cordially" between now and when I get a full time job.

Good luck! Been there, done that as they say.