Teacher Interview

Teacher Interview

I interviewed Mrs. Mary Quinn, a 1st grade teacher at the school I work at.  I have known her since the day of my birth, because she is my mother.  She has been teaching for about 40 years and in that time has seen a lot of different things.  I briefly mentioned to her that I was going to interview her and gave her the questions that morning before interviewing her.  I did not want her to overthink and come up with the ‘perfect’ answer.  I wanted it to be more real and to have real answers based on what she can recall from that moment.

These are the questions I asked and the answers I received.

1.How long have you been a teacher, and what grades?

She has been teaching for about 41 years and has always taught first grade.  Ironically she has worked at 2 schools throughout her career and they both share the same name.

2. How do you manage your classroom?

She believes in what she calls ‘assertive discipline.’  I can speak from experience that she does everything in a positive manner.  When discussing classroom behaviors and goals she always lays out the rules and they are to be followed without question.  It sounds like it might be a difficult learning environment; Woolfolk (p. 497) discusses the idea of whether or not students should be involved in setting up the rules for the classroom.  Perhaps in older grades that might work, but she believes that children inherently want to do the right thing, and crave the structure that school provides.

3. What techniques have you found that do not work in your classroom, and do you think it was the technique or the class.

Room layout appears to be a big technique that Mrs. Quinn uses.  Who a child is placed near and where they are in the classroom can change the whole dynamic of the class.  Some of the groups might be more social and tables do not work so they try the independent, facing the board approach.  She is always willing to retry the method at a different time in the year, after they have developed a bit.

4. Have you ever used a type of rewards system?

She has tried a few things.  Marbles in a jar if the students were complimented in the hall or walked nicely and it was as a whole group.  It was to maintain good behavior; but she has found over the years in the way that she teaches her class, the students do not need a type of rewards system.  They just know what the expectations are and how to act the right way.  She also believes that students should not be rewarded for expected behavior.  That is a discussion we have constantly.  In school we have certain rules that are supposed to be followed, ‘Quiet in the halls’  ‘show respect,’ etc.  There is a sticker reward system the school is using for exceptional behavior, but there seems to be a debate on what that is, versus rewarding for what they should be doing.  There have been many faculty meetings debating that, and it still is unknown.

5. Do you change your management style student to student, or do you try to keep it consistent.

She tries to keep it consistent with all the students but occasionally an individual will need the extra support.  She has tried things like the stoplights, visual cues, sticker systems, parent reports.  But only when the other things are not working. But everyone has the same expectations.

6. Advice

Firm fairness works.  Expectations need to be always enforced for every student.