team effort

Teachers have impossible jobs.

My daughter is in a multi-age grades 1-2-3 classroom, with 20 or so other children. One of them has Down’s syndrome, another has a severe learning disability, and the entire clump of kids in grade one are very not-school-ready little boys who clearly would be much happier running around than sitting quietly on the carpet listening to a story.

I spend Friday mornings there, “helping out”, and even that’s an impossible job. The teacher gives me a task, and a small group of kids, and I try to help the kids do what she’s asked. Trouble is, none of the kids are even remotely interested in what they’re supposed to be doing. They don’t know why they’re being asked to color in certain little squares, or why those squares are being glued onto a long strip of paper, and the connection with those papers and their height in centimeters is lost on them. Trying to explain the concept is frustrating, because none of the kids seem to be able to concentrate on what I’m saying, and although my intentions are good and my efforts are valiant, towards recess time I find myself doing the work for them, just to have it done.

The result of our work is me gluing paper into their math binders while they pretend to know why.

After recess, the next task is drawing three pictures of Things You Like and then writing about the pictures. Some of the kids spend most of the time looking for a pencil, others need their pencil sharpened, the noise level goes way up, it’s ten or fifteen minutes until most kids are seated, and then it’s a lot of looking at the paper blankly, or copying from a neighbor, or doing the actual work but not caring about it, and as I sit next to a few of them, helping with spelling and making overenthusiastic “Good Job!” sorts of noises, my heart sinks down into my stomach. It doesn’t feel right. If even one child in that whole classroom learned even one thing that in that entire morning I would be surprised. They were kept occupied, some of them tried to do what they were told, and the time passed. Then it was lunch, and then back to school for more of the same.

When it was story time, maybe two out of the twenty were in the mood for a story. The rest struggled to sit in their assigned “carpet spot” and not pester their “elbow partner”. I have nothing but admiration for the masterful behaviour management skills of the teacher, but given the ages of the children she was dealing with, most of the words that came out of her mouth were admonishments. Sit up and Eyes in front and Not now and You come sit next to me where I can watch you. The two kids who were in the right mood and mental space for a story about a badger who found an egg-shaped rock paid rapt attention, but the rest didn’t get anything out of story time except for practice in trying not to wiggle.

It is impossible for all twenty of those children to be ready for what the teacher has planned for them every day. She has to plan, because otherwise it would be chaos, and she has to try to get all of the kids doing whatever activity she has planned, but most of the kids are only half-heartedly going through the motions at best. Maybe one of the kids is engaged in any of the activities at any one time, and only by sheer luck, because that child is interested in that topic, and it’s geared towards his/her particular skill levels, but the rest just create the constant white noise of the classroom.

Lots of apparent activity, not much being done.

The other painful truth about the reality of a classroom filled with just-turned 6-year olds is that they are still very young children who really aren’t ready to fend entirely for themselves all day. When I go in to that classroom every Friday, my own little one finds any excuse possible to crawl into my lap and lean her head against my shoulder, and the teacher’s aide constantly has little hands clutching hers, and little arms around her waist. They’re like furry little baby mammals seeking closeness anywhere they can.

The teacher is supposed to be able to meet the emotional needs and learning needs of twenty little children, while keeping them from tearing the place apart.

It’s an impossible job.

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