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Home : 2003 : Mar : 29
I've had experience subbing long-term in K, 1, and 2. I found the little ones to be way too needy for my liking. I also found the curriculum and repetition to be brain-numbing. I taught 4th for two years and loved that age group because they still have an innocence about them, still basically think that the teacher can hang the moon, and the curriculum starts to get much more interesting. Also, They are starting to be capable of producing more in-depth quality work. I taught 6th grade for two years as well. The curriculum is really interesting and you can get some high-level critical thinking and discussions going on with this age group. The down-side is that the hormone thing is full-blown and all of challenges that go along with that (cliques, boyfriend/girlfriend stuff, sexist comments, punk-wanna-be's, etc) can make teaching very difficult. I am currently in my second year of teaching 5th grade. I love the curriculum, especially the Social Studies and Language. The kids are capable of much more independent thinking and writing. You can begin to get some interesting discussions going. One of the things that really blew me away, though, was the behaviors that start to exhibit themselves even among 10 and 11 year olds. The stuff that you used to expect to see at 7th and 8th grade has filtered down to 5th. Within the past three weeks, four kids in my homeroom class and three in the other two 5th grades have been suspended (two of my girls for engaging in a fistfight over a boy, one boy for making very lewd comments and gestures to some girls then mouthing off at the Assistant Principal, two girls for responding in kind to the lewd comments, one boy for stealing, and another boy for being generally rude, obnoxious and disruptive during class). I have come to realize that teachers are generally more tempermentally-suited either to primary or upper elementary, but seldom to both. In spite of the challenges of 5th and 6th, I do enjoy teaching these grades, but if forced to choose between the two, I'm not sure I could really decide.
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