Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums Finding the right Kindergarten teacher for ee

Not that I'll have much impact in the decision making/selection... but from experience does anyone have any traits we should hope to find in a k teacher for a very early k entrance girl?

classroom management skills have to be up on that list i'd think but there is part of me that thinks a younger teacher without a pile of preconceived opinions may be better than a teacher with 20 years. but maybe it is just all depending on the person... what should i hope to direct them towards?

thanks

FWIW, my son has always had a worse year with a younger teacher. I tend to look at a new teacher and know early on how the year is going to go by whether the teacher has had kids or not. That might be a personality issue and not a gifted issue. Young teachers are not as experience, IMHO, with squirmy little boys who do not fit the educational mode as well. If a teacher has had a squirmy little boy of their own, or has taught long enough to have had quite a few in the classroom, then I know we are going to have a fairly good year. The younger teachers seem to do better with people-pleasers, which for me tends to be quiet little girls.

My DS8's best teacher so far was his K teacher who had had a gifted girl and an AD/HD boy of her own. She had quit her job as a real estate agent and gone back to school in her 40's to become a teacher. DS had her in her first year of full time teaching. She was a treasure!!

1st grade was a terrible year with a young, inexperienced teacher. She had been a intervention specialist before moving to 1st grade, and was truly gifted when working with slow learners. She had no understanding of HG+ kids. To make matters worse, the school decided to make an immersion classroom, where they grouped the very advanced kids with the very slow (Title 1) kids. That way the classroom could break into two sections when the reading specialist came in to help the slower kids. But the teacher found it necessary to go over everything many times, from directions for work to math concepts. Truly a nightmare year.

2nd grade was wonderful. DS had an experienced teacher who recognized that he was different and needed to be challenged. She could masterfully put differentiation into effect in her classroom and give DS material that covered more depth. She is the one who started the grade acceleration paperwork. Unfortunately, DS only had her for half of the year.

DS then had a male teacher for half of third due to a grade skip. He was great at understanding DS and his different style of learning and his need to keep something in his pocket (a lego figure usually) to fiddle with. He had been teaching for several years (6ish) but did not have kids of his own. I don't know if it was the lack of kids or inexperience on his part, but he had really never seen a kid like my son. He tried to give DS some extra work, but mostly just let him sit by himself and draw space battle cartoons after he had finished all of his required work. And although he understood him wonderfully in some respects, he did not understand how he needed to be challenged or some aspects of bullying and tattle-telling that went on in the classroom that made my son a target.

Well, this was longer than I had expected. I hope it helps some. I think matching the personality of your child to the personality of the teacher gives the best chance of success. But the more experienced a teacher is, the more likely that they can work around personality differences, as well as provide a challenging environment in the classroom.

FWIW, my son had a 25 year old male kindergarten teacher who was absolutely fantastic. He looked at each kid individually and I actually got the feeling he loved and appreciated each kid for who they were. He dealt with the squirrelly boy thing like a champ and did his best to provide fun extra challenges for kids who were ahead. His classroom seemed more kinetic and more open ended.

Our first grade teacher had at least 15 years teacher experience and has 2 daughters. She left much to be desired. Honestly, it didn't seem like she had the energy to deal with kids like the previous teacher did.

So anyway, I think it is definitely personality dependent. There were 4 kindergarten teachers at our school - 3 get rave reviews. And those 3 were all young teachers without children. The more experienced teacher got more mixed reviews. There is a 2nd grade teacher at our school I would have considered trying had we been assigned to her. She has more experience and kids of her own.

Traits:

A teacher who believes in teaching all children where they are, not just getting everyone up to the standards. This was what our K teacher said, and I nearly hugged her!

I don't know how you figure out that this is her philosophy (or not), but that would be the thing I'd want to know.

I'd also want to know her stance on differentiation, though again, I don't know a good way to find that out. Teachers who embrace differentiation also tend to embrace GTness and all that goes along with it. Teachers who don't...well, it's probably going to be a long, hard year.

I'd have other things to add if you had a boy, but I don't think that most girls have the same issues with "squirminess," as ebeth rightly calls it. (Though if you have a squirmy girl, she'll probably have a worse time of it, given that teachers REALLY expect girls to sit still and shut up.)

Oh, I might want to know how she handles discipline problems. DS7's 1st grade teacher took away recesses right and left from the bored GT kids on her class, then she started bribing them with sugary junk food. Neither approach worked well, and if I'd known ahead of time, it might have told me what we were in for that year. And asking about disciplinary strategies IS something you might be able to ask about without labeling yourself one of "those" parents.

Dunno if that helps at all...

Well, I think it's a crap shoot. In our public school, anyway, you don't even find out who the teacher will be until about a week before class. And, changing teachers is a Herculean effort and most parents who've tried say "don't bother". Can you tell we had a bad year?

But, if you have any input, I'd look for someone who is warm and sensitive over anything else. We had a cold fish for 1st who always looked like she had just swallowed half a lemon. Someone who really cares about kids would be top of my list.

Look for a good match to your kid's personality.

The discipline point is a great one. Our first grade teacher took away recess all the time too. Which seems like the exact opposite thing you'd want to do with a group of squirmy first graders. And a lot of times it would count against the entire class' recess time. Maybe she should have had the offenders run laps at recess or something.

I never did understand taking away recess for bad behavior for squirmy boys, especially. Our school took that a set further last year for the 1st graders. Not only did they miss recess, but during recess time they had to write "I will not talk during class" or whatever for the whole 30 minutes. If they got up or stopped writing, they had to do it all over again the next day. What a way to instill a love of writing in a bunch of 6 year old kids..

ETA: sorry, that was really negative and had nothing to do with the original topic

Give kids no outlet then defer their activity then ramp it up and teach the kids how to manipulate adults!

As I mentioned elsewhere - on taking away recess:

In the 2d grade, I was singled out for this. One day I got fed up with it and I walked off campus when the teacher left with the rest of class for recess.

Wow. We haven't run in to the sour lemon teachers yet. (ouch! and I'm thankful of that!) Our older teachers who are about to retire are the best. Most of the rough edges have been worn away by the hundreds of previous kids that ranged in gifted to non-gifted, squirmy to non-squirmy. But I agree that personality is really the key.

And two notes to add: Do you know that some astounding percentage of new teachers quit after five years? (something like 20%) I think that if anyone survives those first five years, then they have the fortitude to deal with a room full of active kids. I know I wouldn't last 5 minutes!! Also, I saw a statistic that said if a teacher taught for 30 years, with 25 kids in her class each year, then the probability of her having a kid with an IQ over 145 was really small... maybe one kid in all 30 years. Something to remember.