OK, harsh title to a post, I know. But seriously, what I am about to write STILL baffles me. Now, keep in mind, I don't consider myself to always be the brightest bulb in the box, but I would say I am easily a 100W bulb (bright enough to know what's up, but not so bright it hurts). However, I would consider myself to be able to easily hold my own in the thinking department. I think that teachers need to be pretty quick on their thinking toes, and should be able to figure problems out with relative ease. Students often perceive us as the "all knowing" teacher, and are baffled to discover that sometimes we make mistakes too. Parents often think we are "absolute experts" on every subject we teach. But we still need to know what's up, even if we do make mistakes every now and then. Now here's what worries me...
In my 6 years of teaching and 1 year of student teaching, I have taught the whole gammat of grades. K, 2nd, 4th, 6th, and Special Ed. The majority of my years being spent in 6th grade. The scary thing is, that I have repeatedly heard from other teachers "oh I could never teach 6th grade math, that's why I teach 1st", or "what do you do when you can't solve the problem in the math book?" My response to this in my head is generally: "REALLY...are you really that dumb that you can't figure out a 6th grade math problem? 4x + 2 = 18 is really that hard to solve?" But my outward response is generally more along the lines of "oh I'm pretty good at math and love it, so I'm normally ok teaching it". I try not to make the teacher feel as dumb as I am summing them up to be in my head. (Haha, pun intended)
Does this worry anyone else? We are entrusting our children to the minds of people who really don't think they can hack 6th grade math? Even worse, I recently heard "4th grade math is too tricky for me, I'll stick to the primary grades". Come on!!! Thoughts people?!?!? I would love to know if I'm putting myself on some pedestal and thinking I am some smarty pants who's better than primary teachers, or if I can have a little validation here? It's not rocket science. But what are your thoughts?
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