(southbay elementary)

Thoughts on Elementry Education

In my time in two quarters of volunteering at Roosevelt Elementary and South Bay Elementary schools, there are several things that I have found that I enjoy and dislike about teaching. When teaching at an elementary school level, some of the things that I truly enjoy are having the children look up to you as a role model, being an influencial person in their life, having a deep sense of worth and love that can only come from a childs heart. I've also enjoyed teaching the children and felt that when they were actually able to sit down and learn, that they really did enjoy learning from me. In some respects, teaching at an elementary school can be a very rewarding and loving experience for me, however on some other respects, teaching an elementary school is not for me at all. For instance, teaching on an elementary school level takes a level of patience that I do not believe I am going to be able to handle. I know that teaching at any level is going to require patience and when I become a high school teacher, I realize it may require, in some respects, more patience but the consistancy of it at an elementary school is not something I can handle. You have to constantly be on your toes, because you will be continually telling the children to sit down, to pay attetion, to stop doing this, to be working on that. This level takes so much enjoyment out of the actual learning process, becuase it me, it felt like so much of my time would be spent babysitting, rather then teaching. You can get a lot out of the students, but the level in which you put in, is different then a level at a high school. At a high school it is probably more motivation rather then focus. At an elementry level, the amount of time to get the children to focus on the lesson is so drastic, that it seems to consume the teacher. Another reason why I felt teaching at an elementary school level was difficult was because of my willingness to engage the children to voice their own opinion. Although you are able to use many of the techniques that we use at our level in an elementary school, the facts are also there that much 'direct instruction' on specific subjects are needed. These children are learning the basics and expected to perform at a certain level over a wide range of subjects and this I do believe, leaves little to no time to develop excellent lesson plans that are more student oriented and that will allow them to think more critically about the material being taught. This may also have been just my experience with the teachers that I have worked with, but it seems almost impossible to have the time to teach these children in the way, that I find best utilizes their skills and gets them to learn best. Finally, I've realized that I do not want to teach on every subject, but on a particular subject, within social studies. To have to teach, Math, Science, Language, Arts, Reading and Writing is not something I am interested in. I feel more comfortable learning one subject, mastering it and teaching the students that subject, its a personal thing. I would just like to mentioned in closing, that I completly respect all elementary teachers, I've realized from my experience that I still love little kids, and I still love teaching, but that elementary teaching is not the right level for me. Elementary teaching is an extremly difficult and demaning profession, where I believe you must really have a passion for little kids and a love for teaching all different subjects. It takes a very special type of person to become a good elemetary school teacher, and this is something I completly admire and respect. Its been an experience that I will not soon forget, one that I will cherish and may try again before my time is up at evergreen. Finally my e lementry education volunteering experience was very enjoyable and very educational as well.