Job Shadow

Kathleen Robinson
Shelley Elementary, American Fork
1. What made you decide to be a teacher?
a. I really liked teaching and when I was a child I would teach my friends or even my dolls. I liked to play school all the time so it naturally made sense for me to want to be a teacher. As I got older, I taught in primary and found I really liked teaching children, so I choose to go back to school and become a teacher.
2. How do you deal with students who are disruptive or have bad behavior?
a. Try to find out what could be causing them to act this way. Of course, if needed you take disciplinary action as needed to correct the bad behavior, but if you if out why the child may be acting this way, then you can prevent it from happening again.
3. How do you actually plan out all your lessons? There is so much to cover in the state core and I’m not sure how to cram in all in and make sure the students learn it.
a. I have a team of teachers that help me do that. We try and teach the same subject matter at the same time so all the students are learning the same things at the same time. It really helps when you have a team to help you plan all that out. And also to help the students learn, I would suggest group work. It allows the students to learn from each other and teach each other which will help the students learn better.
4. You’re class is so well behaved, how did you get them to do that?
a. I simply got them into a routine. Then they know what to do and how I want it to be done. It takes a whole year to get that down pat and you are seeing the results. The first month of school was the worst because all I did was correct bad behavior and try to keep the students on task. They were testing my boundaries and I just made sure to stay firm on the rules I had laid down.
5. Do you get good benefits and security from this job as well as the sense of satisfaction?
a. Alpine School District is pretty good with benefits. Their health insurance plans are one of the best in the state. That’s why I wanted this job so badly when I applied for it. When I was applying for this job, it was a lot easier to get and keep then yours will be because the economy was better. But hopefully by the time you graduate, the economy will be stable again and you will find a job fairly easily.
6. What educational requirements did you have to get to be a teacher like you are now?
a. I went to school at UVU and got a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education. It helps that UVU’s program has a lot of observation hours to do, so I felt very prepared to be a teacher by the time I got out.
7. What do you do with your students in the morning to help them get set for the day? Mornings seem to be the worst for elementary school children.
a. I have them start reading a book as soon as they come in. Once everyone has arrived for class then we have morning meeting. We sit in a circle and introduce ourselves and say something nice about someone in the circle. This teaches children to complement each other and to listen as others are talking. Then children who want to share what is going on in their lives can do so. This helps the students unload and get out the things they need to say before I start teaching them. It really helps them focus better when they have talked about what they want to talk about before class officially begins.
8. How was your first year of teaching? I’ve heard it’s really hard until you get tenure at year 3.
a. My first year was pretty hard. I stayed after school until 7 or 8 every night working on lessons or other odds and ends. It was really hard to start everything from scratch and try to make everything work nicely. I didn’t have my team of teachers like I do now so that made it much harder to do everything as smoothly.
My impression of the job is that it is very hard, but seems very rewarding. Teachers work hard to help their students succeed. I had a very good time observing in a school because it helped me get a look at what a classroom is supposed to run. I wish I could have done it at the beginning of the year to see how they teach actual curriculum, but at least I got an idea of what being a teacher was like towards the end of the year. You have to be very flexible and willing to work with things. I really feel like this may be a career I want to pursue. It seems so rewarding and you get to see kids learn and grow, which I would really like, since I like helping people and I look for work I care about.