Teaching 8 year old children is about relationships, innovation, relationships, scaffolding, relationships, differentiation, relationships, and did I say relationships? I mean, lets all get real, they are little kids! Can they do achieve higher level thinking? Absolutely! Can they blow your mind with the fast pace at which they grasp a difficult concept? Definitely! Can they do any of these things if they don't feel safe and secure with their teacher? I would say no. This has been the fundamental basics of my teaching philosophy for the last 22 years. I need to build a relationship with these children. I need to set boundaries so they will all feel safe and secure. I need to create an environment for students to freely share ideas without oppression where they can learn at their own pace without scrutiny from others.
So- the first time I taught third graders in a departmentalized situation, things didn't go so well. I had taken a position to teach ELA/Social Studies to third graders and my switch teacher was teaching them Math/Science. She and I spent little or no time planning together for our students. We didn't discuss teaching styles, organization styles, or really anything else. At the time, she was a much more experienced teacher than me, and I'll be honest, I don't think I ever really thought about it. I was just worried about "my classroom". Over time, it became a very difficult situation. The students were carrying a lot of things back and forth (and therefore losing a lot of things), and trying to bounce back and forth between two very different teaching and discipline styles (and therefore too frustrated to learn as much as they should be). I tried to build rapport with all of them and their parents, but it was difficult as I don't think they ever really had that "safe and secure" feeling all day. I was frustrated because I hadn't built a rapport with her and didn't really know how to make things better. So I just kept going the best I could and made a blanket decision that 8 -9 year old students were too young to switch classes and should be in a self-contained classroom!
I did teach self-contained the next year and loved every minute of it! I had a wonderful class, and I feel like we were all successful in our teaching and learning. I wanted to teach in that position for a long time, but...... life had a turn.
We moved to a new city and I was extremely blessed to find a job teaching third grade at a wonderful school with a really strong team of teachers. It was a departmentalized position, and this time I would be teaching Math/Science. My switch partner and I had similar teaching styles and followed the patterns of others to help the students be successful in switching. Things went well. The students were happy, comfortable and successful. However..... I knew we were losing lots of teaching/learning time with all the transitions and they were still losing things (frustrating!).
Since then, I've been at this school teaching for the last 7 years (including the first one I just told you about). In that time, I'm now with my 5th switching partner (!) and have taught self-contained 2 years. The first time I taught self-contained it was FABULOUS! It was probably the most fun I've ever had teaching. EVER! I had the most wonderful group of kids and most of them came to me way above level. Administration was very supportive, but let me "pilot my own plane" as you will, as long as things were going well. And again, they were!
I had one very successful year when my switch teacher and I switched rooms instead of the teachers. This idea was scary to both of us, but turned out to be pretty easy to do. It involved she and I working together a lot and communicating well, but that was easy because we enjoyed each other a lot and built a wonderful friendship along the way. (which I have to say, seems to me one of the key pieces to success looking back).
In my other year of self-contained, I'm not going to lie, it was exhausting. And stressful! The state of Texas has pushed so many TEKS down to third grade and the demand is unbelievable. Again, I'm still blessed to work in a wonderful school, but the expectations of teaching are HIGH! I was at school by 6:30 most mornings studying my lesson plans, preparing anchor charts and strategy groups, guided lessons for math, as well as engaging and worthwhile independent math stations, setting up labs for Science, and never feeling quite ready when they walked in at 8. We have meetings most days during our planning period, so after school I was grading, organizing and trying to make heads or tails before I left each day (usually I had somewhere to be as a mom by 5 or 6). Taking work home and then trying to start over again. It was hard for me to admit, but even though I had beliefs that self-contained was better for these young students, and even though my students were very successful (they weren't an easy bunch), I didn't want to do it again.
So here we are, in October. I have a new switch teacher who is new to my school. We became partners purely by the luck of the draw. Every time, we talked to each other over the Summer, I became more excited about working with her. She and I worked together to make sure that our students were hauling back and forth as little as possible. She is great with the students. Loving, firm, fun and demanding all rolled up in one. She is easy-going about them slipping back in the other room to grab something, but keeps a disciplined group of learners working throughout the day. She and I worked together to create a schedule where students switch right before specials and right before lunch (alleviating the poky little puppies who won't hurry to get to math!). So far, it seems to be seamless. The students are doing well. I'm not frustrated. My workload has been lightened and I feel so much more relaxed about being prepared for my day every day. (I'm only there from 7-5 or so most days).
Maybe the question isn't to switch or not to switch, maybe the question is have you put your students in a position to be successful?
I'm wondering how I will feel about this at the end of this year, in 5 more years, and beyond. What are your experiences? Successes? Growth opportunities? I'd love to learn from you more ways to make my students successful!
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