Week 2 - reflections on American education

Today sees the end of our second week in the US, and it's been a busy one. I've managed to notch up another interview, and have 2 second interviews scheduled for the first week in May (next week is a school vacation week...good to know for next year!). I've also done my first paid in America as a substitute this week, as well as spending two whole days in different schools shadowing teachers and asking lots of questions. There's a lot of familiarity in schools (after all, kids are kids the world over, especially in the West) but there's a lot of differences. Some are positive, some are negative, some will need me to be a teacher here for a while before I can gauge my opinions about them. Here are my top 5 observations from this week:

Uniforms

In the US, there are none. Each school has guidelines that run along the lines of no midriffs, no offensive words and no jewelry, but everything else is fair game. It feels strange after the uniformed order of English schools to see children in what I see as weekend wear and my gut instinct says to prepare for a slack day as this is generally what happens in the UK on non-uniform days. I guess that it's normal for them, but apparently there are discussions regarding uniforms. I'm undecided on this, time will tell on my thoughts.

Unified Arts

In the UK, an elementary school teacher is expected to be a jack of all trades; teaching core subjects of English and maths in the morning, then juggling a hefty load of foundation subjects in the afternoon (art, music, science, PE etc). Here, they have specialists for the Unified Arts (art, music, PE for definite, schools vary on the others) and classes attend these without their regular teacher. In one respect I think this is great: you get a good 45 minute chunk per day to mark, prepare, have meetings as opposed to one big chunk of PPA each week, and the kids get specialist teaching (great for my classes in art where I always felt they got short changed!). On the other hand, it's hard to create any flow and limits the amount of true cross-curricular learning that can take place. There doesn't seem to be many opportunities for discussion or liaison between the specialists and class teachers, so it's hard to see a way in which they don't operate independently. Again, time will tell which of these viewpoints I side with more.

Class Size

The average class size that I've seen this week has been less than 20, making me feel as if I've lost a large number of pupils, setting off a mild panic. This I can only see as a positive, as immediately I felt like I had a better handle on the kids even as a substitute (18 names are easier to remember than 30, especially with gems like Talon, Kennis and Tallis...) and I could give more individual attention over the course of a lesson. The smaller class size will hopefully have a knock on effect on my workload, though talking to other teachers this week makes me think that there are other pressures on their times if their stories are to be believed. In any case, the smaller class sizes will make a positive difference to my teaching and I'm looking forward to this closer approach.

Day Timings

Not all schools run to the same timings, but there is a definite preference for an early start and early finish. In both schools I've been in this week, pupils start arriving around 8/8.15, but due to the staggered nature of the school bus routine, there is an awful lot of time wasted (or what feels like wasted time) waiting for everyone to come in, given that the end of the school day is 2.30/2.45. You also end up with ridiculous things like the first graders eating lunch at 11am (though this may explain Kelsey's preference for early meal times) and no morning recess across school. Again, I will adapt to these things, and I've thoroughly enjoyed being home before 3.15 (though this will change when I'm teaching full time), but the pace of the day seems intense for such young children.

Technology

Even what I was assured was a not well off elementary school this week, there was a fully functioning computer suite of new iMacs, a set of iPads and Chromebooks shared across the school and a few netbooks in each class. In one school that I'm interviewing in, their computing budget is $100,000, well over the total learning resource budget for all subjects from my previous school. There is a big push in all schools to incorporate technology, to the point where all pupils have Google logins, and Google Drive and Classroom is being used to share work. I'm keen for to be part of this and to see how my knowledge and expertise can be used to push things even further.

Behaviour Systems

Finally, whilst the general standard of behaviour has been good (polite manners, kids responding to adult instructions, helping each other), there seems to be a massive slackness on allowing kids to talk at any time, and not pay attention. I've had to bite my tongue when shadowing on numerous occasions on things that I wouldn't accept in my class, and when I was in charge, I laid my rules out quickly and clearly at the start of each lesson. I'm not sure if it's across all schools, or just in the classes that I've seen, but it's more commonplace than I would have imagined, or maybe I'm just going to be that strict teacher from England. I think in part it's due to the fact that I've not seen a discernible reward system in place in any school (I'm thinking Class Dojo or house points for example) to give quick boosts in class and focus positive attention on the kids doing the right thing. On the flip side, there seems to be no formal visible system of consequences either, so it may be that schools don't feel they're necessary. However, with the amount of low level disruption that I saw and clamped down on, I may have to dig further as to why I've not seen these things in place.

A "week off" next week in which we'll step up the job hunt for my wife and start talking serious day care, then on with the interviews and further substitute work towards the end of the school year.