Rachel Plumlee's Interview with a third grade teacher

Mrs. E is a third grade in a K-6 school with less than 500 students in total, located in the mountains between Monterey and Salinas. The school is made up of predominantly White and Latino students, many are socioeconomically disadvantaged students as well. The numbers of English language learners (ELLs) are low compared to other school in the district and less than 25 percent at this school are considered to be beginner or early intermediate English learners.

Mrs. E has now been teaching for 25 years. She has taught multiple grades including second, third, fourth and fifth at three different schools. She has been at FH Elementary for 20 of her teaching years. While here she has taught second-third combos, third-fourth combos, and straight third grade. Having been at FH Elementary School for so long places her as one of the top teachers at the school.

After all these years of teaching Mrs. E says that it is her love of children that keeps her interested in continuing to teach, she says this with a big smile on her face and a quick giggle. You can tell she has a love for children and her job in the way she describes her philosophy on teaching. Her classrooms are very easy going most years, so that the kids feel comfortable while there. However, she also mentions that this is very hard to do with a classroom full of 32 students, most of whom have behavioral issues this year, so she is forced to be more strict and structured. Mrs. E feels reassured that the kids in her class understand why things must be this way and also that they accept it.

She frequently talks about how when she had class sizes this big 15 years ago there were never any problems; there would be maybe two students who would act out whereas now half the class will. She has spoken with me many times about the quality of work then as compared to now as well, the writing was much better, tests were much harder and still passed, and the projects done were fantastic. She still has examples of much of this exemplary work around her classroom and I believe her when she says things were much different then. She strongly believes that technology has ruined a lot for kids; they lack imagination and have short attention spans.

Mrs. E believes the purpose of the public education system is to give every child the opportunity for an education. When I prompted her for more information about why every child needed this opportunity she explained that they need it, otherwise they cannot be successful contributors to society; they will be running around doing nothing or be in jail.

The classroom is organized with six groups of desks, each having five or six students, and it feels very crammed into her small classroom. All the desks face towards the overhead, where all of the instruction takes place. She strategically places the students around the room based on their learning needs or behavioral problems, making sure two students who are both very social are not near each other and that students who lack focus are right up front where she can see them. The eight ELLs are spread all over the class and are treated like the rest of the students throughout the day, being called on for answer or getting their name taken for not paying attention.

When it comes to the ELL student’s specialized instruction she takes the approach of using SDAIE. She feels that sending them out of the class for the standardized instruction they would receive would be an insult to these students because of their knowledge base. Most of the students in the class are at the intermediate or danced levels of fluency but there are a few are still not very fluent, and they are all treated equally. She takes them out into the center area just outside the classroom two times a day for this special instruction time. Breaking up the time she says makes it easier on them to retain the information. During this time she gives them specialized attention in the social studies field. Using the same book as the other students, they all take turns reading aloud, going over vocabulary more in depth. She explains things that come up which the students may not understand because of their language differences. Mrs. E says this time is much more helpful for the students than going out to learn how to write or read since most of the ELL students are better writers than the English only students in the class.

Mrs. E is an exemplary teacher and has a lot of helpful advice because she has been teaching for so long. It is interesting to hear about how much things have changed in the education realm in the past 15 years and the fact that she has the work and projects to show me is amazing. I know that I have much more to learn from Mrs. E and I can tell she has much more to teach me.