Hi everyone!
I am in a first grade classroom. The teacher of that certain classroom uses only graphic organizers (worksheets) for all subjects. She doesn't teach a lesson. She just hands out the papers and let them to work on their own. The classroom has students with different levels of education and some of them are not able to work alone. And basically they don't learn anything. They need someone who can help them to learn because that's why they come to school. I am worried about the kids in this classroom and all classrooms if they have teachers like the one in this classroom. I would like to know is this another method of teaching reading and writing, and math? She doesn't include social studies and science.
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4 comments:
Horrible!! Was this teacher exempt from taking all these classes that we are taking at the moment? How do the students get introduced to what they are learning and the specific objective of the lesson? I believe that worksheets should be used only for the sole purpose of practice or checking for understanding following a lesson. If the students don't understand the lesson that is being taught then the teacher should not move on to anything else until they do. The teacher is there to teach, anyone can pass out papers. It sounds like pure laziness and boredom on the teacher's behalf. This person should look into getting another job because this is clearly unfair to her students who deserve a stimulating education that can help meet their fullest potential.
While it is valuable to use graphic organizers to an extent in the classroom, I do not see the value in doing so all of the time. This teacher needs to add some variety to her instruction, especially in first grade where students are just beginning to learn in school. What's more, she should be actively teaching such young children, rather than allowing for them to basically teach themselves. Is she new? Perhaps she is just sticking to a comfort zone at the students' expense becasue she does not know anything else to do. If so, would you offend her by showing her something different, like some of the things that we are learing in our classes right now?
The sad part is …there are too many teachers out there like this! And I ask myself the same question, what are they doing in the teaching field? But also how do administrators not know that some of these teachers are like this? First off when you mention science and social studies, at most schools unless they are magnet or have special programs they are not required to teach those things, it is not apart of their curriculum. It isn’t until the older grades when they actually have science, social studies, and health added in.
I do agree that sometimes graphic organizers are helpful, but only sometimes, not for everything! These students need to be taught and aren’t at the age where they can just magically figure things out for themselves, they need to be guided. I agree with you that learned has to take place in many different forms (hands on, visual, listening etc) I think that worksheets only help with checking for understanding and practice, but even then there are other ways to do that!
You asked if this is a different method of teaching, and honestly I only feel that this is a method of laziness on the behalf of the teacher! These poor students, it’s not their fault, and not to mention their second grade teachers who are probably going to have to reteach them because this teacher did not.
I would try to be nice about it and show other ways of teaching lessons while at the same time trying not to offend her.
I think we can all agree that this is one of the "bad" teachers and the students probably agree. You said that she doesn't even teach the lesson and just has students fill out the worksheets. I'm curious also as to how these are being graded, if the students aren't gaining new information. This teacher could be majorly burned out, but I think this is the end of the year for most year round schools and this is the time to have a little fun with the curriculm. If this was anyother time I might think she was teaching towards testing, but I think this is just mean. I've heard some aweful stories about C/Ts and I think that it might not be bad to first ask the teacher about why she teaches this way. If she's stubborn and just plain lazy I would mention something to administrators and my supervisor. Not only is this affecting you as a practicum student negatively, it ruining those 1st grade students enjoyment and love of learning. I think that if I were working with someone like this I would speak up.
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