Teacher Interview Paper Sample

Aliyah Thomas

Ed. 288

Teacher Interview

Widener University

5

Who: Barbara Grentz

Grade: Kindergarten (ages 5 and 6)

School: Kindergarten Academy in Interboro, PA

Synopsis: Mrs. Barbara Grentz has been a kindergarten teacher for years. She believes that all her students can do things independently and should focus on thier on tasks and behaviors, not everyone elses. She is all about making each of her students feel important in the classroom, but makes sure that everyone is treated equally.

What Behavior Managemtn System did you choose to use inside your classroom? “The Behavior Management System I use in my classroom is a pirate behavior clip chart system developed by Rick Morris. This chart helps to promote positive

This chart helps to give them a felling of accomplishment because if and when they make good choices, then they have the change to move their clip up and get rewarded. This is effective even for the students who might have had to move their clip down because it gives them the opportunity to improve their behavior. It motivates them to make positive choices so that they can move their clip up. I opted to go with this chart instead of the typical traffice light chart (with red,yellow, and green) because of its negative connotation. I have asked students who are in a classrrom with that kind of chart what does it mean if you are on red and they all would say that it meant you were a bad person. I did not want my behavior chart to be like that. I wanted my chart to focus on the behavior, not the child as an indiviudal or their character. I wanted to focus on their behavior and the choices that they chose to make. Which is always why I tell my students to stop and think before they do

I feel like there should be specific consequences related to the inappropriate behaviors. This system seemed like a good idead at first but now I do not hink that I would like to use this in my own classroom in the future, but if I did i would only use it the second half of the school year. By then i would know all of my students normal behaviors and how they react during activities and transitioning throughout the day. My only issue with this is that this form of a behvaior systme does not hold any documentation for students that do misbehave. I would not know what to tell a parent when they pick up there child and see that their clip is on red. Without a written record of what made me tell them to move it down, I would not be able to give a parent accurate insight on what happened. Another thing is that the chart encourages good behavior but it does not neccisarly change the children's behavior permanently. Even though the chart is like a “reminder” for some students to always do good, it is still embarassing to some children when they have to get up and have the whole class watch them move their pin down. I also feel like it puts pressure of the children because the kids that may stay on green (which is not a bad thing) may feel stressed or kind of worried if they constantly see their other classmates moving up the chart on a daily