College Student Wanting to Interview a Teacher

[kforteza]

Hello!

I am a student in the Elementary Teacher Education program at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan. I need to interview a teacher for a class, and I was hoping one of you would be so kind as to help me out. Any level or location is fine.

Questions:
What and where do you teach?
How long have you been teaching?
What do you like best about teaching?
What do you like least?
What was the biggest challenge you faced during your first year of teaching? AND/OR What do you think is the biggest challenge in education today?

Thanks in advance,
Kristina :)

[Chef Dave]

I am a former elementary teacher turned high school chef instructor. If no one else responds to your post, please let me know. I can either answer your questions as a chef instructor or talk about my last elementary teaching assignment.

Regards,

David

[kforteza]

If you would be so kind as to talk about your current position, that's fine. I don't have to interview an elementary teacher.

Thanks!
Kristina

[Chef Dave]

What and where do you teach?

I am a high school culianry arts instructor. I teach at Thatcher High School in Thatcher, Arizona.



How long have you been teaching?

Although this is my first year to work as a chef instructor, this is my 18th year teaching. Before I got a culinary arts degree and began work in the food service, I was an elementary teacher for 17 years.



What do you like best about teaching?

I like seeing the eyes of my students light up as they learn and master various cooking techniques. It's always a pleasure to hear them exclaim, "Wow, this is good," after they've prepared a dish they've never heard of before.

I also like the fact that nearly everything we make is sold in our student restaurant. We have a commercially licensed restaurant and sell lunch on a daily basis throughout the school week.



What do you like least?

I don't really care for having to supervise/sponsor extracurricular activities - the reason being that I get to work at 5 AM to begin breakfast and lunch prep and/or to test out recipes. As a high school teacher, I've had to supervise float construction for homecoming and oversee the concession stand at football games. This makes for a long day ... though not as long as the days I worked while serving as a restaurant manager.



What was the biggest challenge you faced during your first year of teaching? AND/OR What do you think is the biggest challenge in education today?

During my first year of teaching I was a 5th grade teacher in south Texas. All of my students were the children of low income migrant farm workers.

I did my student teaching at a school in an upper middle class subdivision. I was thoroughly unprepared to work with children from low income backgrounds.

The biggest challenge of today is NCLB - the No Child Left Behind legislation.

Under this legislation, schools are required to test basic skills. The problem with this is that not all schools are created equal. Inner city schools and some rural schools that had previous problems with academic performance are really suffering.

It would be one thing if all students had been on grade level when this legislation passed but the reality is that all too many children were already several grade levels below where they should have been.

Schools are now being penalized for poor performance. Schools that fail to meet their AYP (adequate yearly progress) can be taken over by the state. The teachers and administrators who work at these schools can lose their jobs.

The end result is that many states, like Texas, have adopted a teach to the test mentality.

My problem with this is that NCLB only tests BASIC SKILLS. Surely we aspire to do more than to teach basic skills.

Secondly - what about things that aren't covered by the test? I once had a building administrator tell me not to bother teaching science or social studies because these items weren't tested (at the time) in Texas.

How can we ignore state mandated curriculum just because it isn't tested?

A third thing I will point out is that poor academic motivation often goes hand in hand with poverty.

It is very hard to teach students who come to school cold and hungry. How can we teach children whose basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter are not being met?

NCLB is not a catch all for problems that are largely socio-economic in nature. NCLB was well intentioned but to be truly effective, this legislation has to be coupled with a war on poverty. We need to clean up the inner city. We need to provide parenting workshops, clean and affordable housing, safe neighborhoods, job training, and job opportunites.

[kforteza]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. It's awesome that students get hands on experience making food items along with business experience. I especially agree with you on school performance and poverty. I just read an article talking about how 11 out of 13 Southern states have a majority of students who are from low-income families. It's a vicious cycle since they have a higher chance of being retained, dropping out, or just have a low GPA. Then they can't get the jobs they want and help their children, etc.

I hope to spend more time here at these forums, especially since next semester I have field work in both math and science.

Thanks again so much!

Kristina

[kingrichie]

I teach 3rd grade at a public elementary school in Southern California.
I am now in my 20th year of teaching.
I definitely like the kids. They crack me up.
I really hate dealing with the administration and the state standards.
My first year was pretty good. You learn a lot about classroom management. Talking with parents was a little uncomfortable at first.
I think the toughest thing today is trying to teach the state standards to kids that are at all different levels of development. Then, trying to find lessons that teach those specific state standards.
It's hard to prepare kids for a major test, when you don't know what & what is not going to be on that test. It's unfair to everyone.

[Chef Dave]

I just read an article talking about how 11 out of 13 Southern states have a majority of students who are from low-income families. It's a vicious cycle since they have a higher chance of being retained, dropping out, or just have a low GPA. Then they can't get the jobs they want and help their children, etc.

Yes, this is an incredibly vicious cycle.

What's sad is that the government in Washington thinks that NCLB is some sort of magic wand that will make all these problems disappear.

It won't.

Education can be a ticket out of poverty but it can be a long hard climb.

From a teacher perspective, it isn't fair for the government to say, "fix it" when poverty is largely a socio-economic problem and not (directly) an educational problem.