In your experience, which teachers are more effective in Kindergarden class?
I have a choice to put my daughter in AM or PM
The AM teacher is older, experienced, more mature, displined, stricter, less bubbly, obviously went to school a while ago
The PM teacher is younger, less experienced, energetic, uses more technology, very bubbly, seems like out of college in the last 5 years or so.
Please share your experience with teachers that new to teaching field. I like the fact that they are more intuned with new learning practices but experience counts too.
You have to consider just as much the best environment for your child's personality. My middle son had a kindergarten teacher who was vibrant and kept things moving, was great at motivating the kids and keeping the level of excitement very high. This was great for my middle son who needs to be motivated at times. He responded so well to this approach.
Youngest son though would not do well in this atmosphere, he would find the excitement level too high and too distracting. He learns better in a more subdued atmosphere.
However, I think I would try for an AM slot for nursery, better learning time for your child.
I am a newly qualified teacher and obviously I am going to say 'just give us a chance'. However, let me share my experience with parents.
I am quite young looking but I am well over 25, I have had 11 years of experience of working with children, and I have a psychology degree which focused in on child development, yet the parents literally ate me alive on the first parents evening I had with them. I used to have to have at least 2 weekly parent meetings every week until March (I started teaching in September). They just didnt trust me. But, once we had our second parents evening...all of them (even the one that screamed at me in October and the one that accused me of lying about her child in Jan) believed everything that I told them about their children.
They finally began trusting me once they could see that their children had progressed exactly how I said they would have. I spent a lot of time making personalised home actvities (on top of regular homework) to give to the parents to help their children at home. Not one thankyou. Not one 'you were right' until March. Had frustrated me at times as i do believe that sometimes I have gone above and beyond my duties as a teacher, however, I don't teach for the parents. I teach for the children. I just wish parents would actually trust me more.
In fact, I actually had one parent tell me today that she was impressed with my organisation skills. I just smiled at her and said, 'well after 10 months, i'm glad iv got the hang of it now'.
I teach 5 and 6 year old children, their parents just dont understand how different Reception is from Key Stage 1. A lot less child intiated play and more focused learning. Transition period is about 1 full term (Sept - Jan). I think the parents thought that we would be teaching them how to read and write Shakespeare by November. Doesnt work like that with 5 year olds who are used to learning through play.
Milly, you sound like a fun and honest teacher, wish I get someone like u for my daughter when the time arrives for school.
Aw thank you Saadia. I try my best! Today we made an instant poem by writing a descriptive word about a flower (or how flowers made them feel) on a petal and I stuck them on the board in the shape of a flower. They were DEAD impressed. All chuffed that they had written a poem! Some of the words they were coming out with were hilareous though...we had a range from 'stinky, smelly, too small' to 'beautiful, joy, and grateful'.
you do sound like an awesome teacher Milly. I vow to appreciate my child's teacher!
In your teaching experience - do you find that your teaching style or technique varies from the older teachers?
Can I answer honestly?
I have found that the only main difference is confidence.
One of the teachers I work with has 16 years experience, yet she still finds things like assessment and planning creative activities difficult. She is however very confident at her teaching styles and methods. Albeit some of them are a little old (she likes children to sit at the table all the time and loves neat hand writing only).
I personally, would perfer my children to be having fun when they are learning. Sometimes I do have 'indoor voice learning' (which basically means get on with your learning quietly), however most of the time I encourage them to help each other with their learning. Peer work is fantastic, as it really helps consolidation of their learning, if they can teach another child in their own words than I have explained properly.
I am still finding thinsg out in terms of what works best for me. Like our current topic is 'food' and we are doing things like ' food around the world', making fruit salad, planting food (veg), this teacher had already nabbed all the globes and world maps as she knew she would need them in advance. As this is my first year teaching I was actually (pathetically) unaware that I needed this things on display from day one. So now, im hunting the school for books about food around the world and stuff like that. Still cant find a damn world map. Having said that though, I did show them 'Google Earth' and they were fascinated! The teacher with 16 years experience is too afraid to use 'Google Earth' I did tell her I had only just downloaded it myself, but she was adament they would be fine with just a globe. I am not saying having a globe wouldnt be good for the kids, however, we should try and keep up with what is current and things that they will have to get used to for the future.
^^ lolz... sounds familiar... I had some disagreement with my cooperating teachers on the use of technology too. They indeed are scared of it if they don't know much.
Tell me about it man! We plan as a team and I am so limited in what I can plan for them. I even put all the internet links and shortcuts to their desktops, yet...NOoooooooooooooo, they dont flipping use them!
For our PSHE learning next week I have suggested we use jam doughnuts as a way of introducing the notion of changing a habit, the habit here being not licking your lips when eating a doughnut. Its part of our 'changes' module. I think its a cool idea. Yet NO. Its not as if I am advertising becoming Homer Simpson!