Details the experiences of a first year inner city kindergarten teacher.
Saturday, September 6
I spent the night thinking of strategies to help the students in my class and the positives of my situation. Positives first:
1. I still have a job. When the district cut my position in June, I wasn't sure if I'd have a job in September. I spent the entire summer stressing about that. Now I can continue to pay for my son's college tuition and my daughter's high school tuition.
2. I have help in my classroom for an hour-and-a-half everyday. Many kindergarten teachers in the district don't have that.
3.I'm able to teach kindergarten. I was very concerned that I'd end up in a higher grade. After teaching 2 - 4 year olds for my entire career, being thrown into a second or third grade class would have been difficult.
Strategies:
1. I know that Ramona Johnson had an IEP in Pre-K because the special needs coordinator told me. I am going to call Ramona's former teacher, and ask which behavioral and instructional strategies were used for her when she was in Pre-K. I am also going to do the same for Devon Wilson. Collaboration is key to help these children succeed.
2. I'm outlining my daily schedule and making an anchor chart with pictures for the children to read. Consistency is important for children.
3. I'll incorporate lots of music and movement into the schedule. That should help relieve the stress and anger of the students.
That's all I have for now.I think I'm off to a good start.
I was expecting negatives from your intro. But in a way, I'm glad you didn't mention them… Just strategies. I'm fond of acronyms to make it easier to share complicated technical terms with like-minded people in my field. But for the general reader, it's better to define an acronym by putting the definition behind IEP (what it means) the first time you use it. Without looking it up, I'm still in the dark, although probably every schoolteacher who reads this will know. But, I believe your purpose is not to preach to the choir, but to enlighten ignorant blokes like me how difficult it is to teach in today's inner-city schools.
For example, I never would have dreamed that you (she?) would have to cope with "stress and anger" among kindergarten children. Probably why, from middle school onward, has become more disciplinary and less educative. Although I do recall my eighth-grade algebra teacher who always got sidetracked into preaching some kind of disciplinary lesson to us and forget the algebra lesson for the day.
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