Teaching Assistants

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Teaching Assistants
By K

While I realize that TA's are not payed as much as teachers, they are a vital part of the classroom. In my distict, TA's are also referred to as instructional assistants. To me, this means they are there to assist in the
daily activities of the students. This does include classroom management. In my room, we have a very clear displince policy. I expect TA's to follow this policy. I mainly use my TA to run a center activity, involving 5 to 6 children at a time. When they run an activity, it IS their responsibility to have control over their group. TA's should not run to me if so and so are not sharing

or argue over something. It is the TA's job to handle these issues when she is working with a group. I often run 3 to 4 centers at a time, and it is not helpful to have the TA interrupt my teaching to inform me that so and so grabbed a pencil from another child. Surely, even an uneducated TA can handle this situation on her own.

By the way, TA's might not get paid nearly what teachers do (and that by the way is not much), however, they do get about $15 a hour to start in my district, and the same benefits as me. I do not expect a TA to do any planning, grading, talking or conferencing with parents, or any other teaching duty like those. I do expect them to enforce classroom procedures and take some initiative around the classroom. I fully explain the center they will be running, and expect adults to be able to follow directions. If they can't do that, they would be better off finding another profession.