Matthew Courtney's Interview with a Third Grade Teacher

Mrs. B is a pretty, confident, and exuberant thirty-two year old woman in her eighth year as a teacher. The first half of her time “in the field” was spent in a public school in San Diego teaching third graders. Now, and for the past four years, Mrs. B has worked at her current school teaching second grade.

Her current school is an English language, public, international charter school whose student body is comprised of 45% White, 26% Asian, 10% African American, 15% Latino and 2% Native American students. The school sits atop a hill overlooking the ocean and is nestled in among a large residential community. Admission to this public charter school is based on an open lottery system, creating a student body with a diversity of cultural and economic backgrounds. However diverse in culture, the school has not been classified as a “Title One” school and therefore cannot participate in a free lunch program due to a minority of economically challenged students. Interestingly, 38% of the parents have graduate degrees or higher.

While teaching in the public school in San Diego Mrs. B found it challenging to be forced into a specific schedule every day. “But,” said Mrs. B with a smile, “once the doors are closed, it's your class,” indicating that although constrained, her years in San Diego were spent mixing her own creativity into the curriculum. Today, whether designing a reading comprehension lesson or teaching students about geometric shapes, Mrs. B always tries to exhibit the ideals of her favorite philosopher John Dewey. She uses student centered learning techniques accompanied with experiential learning (something she feels very passionate about). Adding fuel to her philosophical fire, the school's charter school status allows more opportunity for Mrs. B to “bring the curriculum alive,” as she puts it. This is due in part to the high frequency of field trips she is allowed to plan and take. There is a higher than usual amount of parent involvement in the classroom than most public schools, a convenient thing when carpooling to a field trip destination (all of which the resourceful Mrs. B makes sure are admission free).

In a nutshell, Mrs. B believes the purpose of a public education is to provide equal access to all students the ability to realize their full potential in a globally competitive manner while attaining empathic awareness and understanding of the of the earth. While much of her opinion has remained constant throughout her history as an educator, the advantages of teaching an international curriculum have further shaped her views. She has become more aware of education as a tool for humanity, rather than for the assimilation of a specific culture. Philosophy aside, Mrs. B wants to ensure that each of her second grade students comprehends what they read and has a good foundation of mathematics to proceed to third grade. Over everything else though, Mrs. B strives to instill in her students a love of learning.

Her classroom is organized to be stimulating for the child. She believes the children should take ownership in the space surrounding them. Most of the decor has been created by the students themselves, from large paper mache fish which lightly sway in the breeze of an open door to the “fact family” houses which create a miniature numeric neighborhood along one wall of the classroom.

Mrs. B organizes her students in groups of four to six. Students are paired with another student of a similar learning ability serving as desk-mate and directly across from another pair of different learning ability students. In this way there is an atmosphere of academic comfort created within a students' immediate surroundings with helpful peers never too far away.

In today’s world of standardized curriculum there are prescribed lessons that Mrs. B finds to be boring. She spices the sometimes bland curriculum with a lot of dancing and music. Congo lines, as well as choreographed poems, song and dance are powerful and effective tools she employs for getting children to grasp a lesson.

When asked about how she keeps such an exuberant attitude in the classroom, Mrs. B replied, “ I get to be with kids all day and play with rocks! How is that not fun?” While she admittedly has had some bad days in her career, Mrs. B alluded that most of her frustration has been caused by parents, not students. Whenever she feels a little upset during a day in the classroom, Mrs. B takes a peek at her “warm fuzzy” file. The “warm fuzzy” file is a folder in which she has collected student notes, drawings and other work that express appreciation, admiration and love of learning and remind her of the impact she has had on her students. “Only really, really special things go in the file and I put it way in the back of my file cabinet, but I can look in the file and remind myself of why I teach” said Mrs. B. She shared the idea about the ”warm fuzzy” file with me as she said because another teacher shared it with her during her student teaching days. In the interview I gathered that the love she had for her students and her ability to see them progress was the most rewarding and satisfying part of her career.

From my visit to Mrs. B's class I have learned that a fun and creative atmosphere and positive spirit go a long way. Just by being in her classroom my mind started to wander at the possibilities of things I could do with my own classroom sometime in the future. Contagious energy and excitement of teaching bounced off the walls of her classroom. Students in such an environment could scarcely avoid being hit with it. Creativity, color and music are the lasting remnants of the space she created for her students in my mind. Mrs. B has taught me that with positivism, a love of teaching and by being in the moment one can weather hardships and win a lot of hearts.