She watches from the sidelines in Room L9 with a bemused expression crossing her face, smiling at kindergarteners — 5-year-olds with energy levels too high — as they walk into the classroom.
It’s her first day of field experience as a senior at IU. Every Wednesday for the semester, she’ll come into the same room and greet familiar faces. The field experience is required of education students and is meant to prepare them to lead their own classroom.
Russell is 21, and within a year she’ll begin a career in a struggling field. She said she has known she has wanted to teach since freshman year when she changed her major, even though it meant summer classes and six semesters jammed with at least 18 credit hours so she could graduate on time.
Nearly every teacher she’s encountered — and people who know teachers, too — has warned her against this job.
You want to be a teacher? Don’t do this. Don’t throw away your life doing this. You’re going to regret this decision. It’s not worth it. You don’t want this job.
***
There’s a teacher shortage in Indiana. Schools are in need, and the job is harder than ever. Russell is well aware of the struggles teachers face: an overload of standardized tests, poor pay and general lack of community respect.
On her first day at Templeton, she will learn more about the obstacles to being a good teacher and a happy person at the same time.
Though she said she knows what’s at stake, that doesn’t stop her from assuming her coddling voice.
It is in stark contrast to the strictly serious voice of the Jen Waltz, the kindergarten teacher whose class she’s observing.
“Hi,” Russell says softly, as she smiles and waves to the kids as Waltz bustles around setting up activities for the day.
“Miss Waltz, do we have gym today?” asks a girl with a long black ponytail.
“Look at the board,” Waltz answers without glancing up.
The girl skips over to the whiteboard, ponytail swinging, and sees “physical education” under the date — Sept. 23, 2015 — in kindergarten teacher handwriting — crisp and pointy and curvy all at once.
Under the board, a table is set back from the rest of the room. Russell said she later noticed it was filled with stacks of common formative assessments, or CFAs.
Russell said she knows the heavy focus on standardized testing can be problematic for schools, but she doesn’t know much about CFAs.
After subbing for three years and being in several classrooms, relating to the kids is easy. It’s the classroom management that might not be so simple.
The day starts with breakfast — eaten in the classroom, free for many students, just like lunch, because of the low-income population at Templeton. The rest of Waltz’s students trickle in and begin practicing their J’s. Some have already begun to master their letter-writing. Others have wobbly J’s. Russell walks around, taking notes and smiling.
Nonsensical chatter percolates throughout the room.
“One-two-three, eyes on me!” Waltz says, and it’s clear she’s practiced this many times.
“One-two, eyes on you!” her class says back. The talking stops.
Russell notices Waltz knows how to recognize problematic situations and easily sidestep them. She knows when a temper tantrum is just for attention or when her kids are tired or cranky.
“Down here, you’re teaching them how to be learners, you’re teaching skills,” Waltz says to Russell later in the day.
Normally, the day is split up so students are in “small group time” for 25 minutes followed by a 90-minute literacy block. After that, Wednesdays consist of lunch, then math, Spanish, specials, snack and time Waltz typically spends reading from a chapter book or watching a short video.
“Can I please have hands up in a bubble?”
Maybe half the class responds by raising their arms in a “bubble” shape, and Waltz isn’t satisfied yet.
She asks again. “If I have to ask a third time, it’s a clip move.”
At the threat of a dreaded clip move, the class obeyed. It is the first time all day Waltz has brought up the clips, but it won’t be the last. Every student in the class has a clip on a green slot — “READY TO LEARN.” If they do something good, they can be rewarded by having their clip moved to “GOOD CHOICES”, “GREAT JOB” or “FANTASTIC.” As a consequence for bad behavior, Waltz can move a clip to “THINK ABOUT IT,” “TEACHER’S CHOICE” or “PARENT CONTACT.”
The kids alternate between stations to practice phonetic skills before it’s time for lunch, which means another several minutes of scrambling and another “one-two-three, eyes on me.”
Through the chaos, Russell smiles softly and continues taking notes.
***
On this Wednesday, Waltz doesn’t have recess duty, which means lunch to herself followed by planning time. She normally eats lunch with her closest colleagues, Margaret Shields and Chloe Nelson. The three are the only teachers at Templeton who focus only on kindergarten.
However, on this Wednesday, Waltz spends her free time asking Russell if she has any questions.
Russell asks about the school’s report card, which has gone through a recent revamp, leaving teachers confused and frustrated. Instead of running on a letter scale, it’s based off of a 4-point scale. Teachers are expected to rate their students’ abilities at the beginning of the year and then again at the end.
Russell listens as Waltz explains her concern the teachers don’t have enough training yet to fully comprehend the new system.
“I’m confused, and I put the grade in,” Waltz explains to Russell. “I should know what it’s trying to tell me.”
Through the Early Childhood Education program at IU, Russell has learned to be apprehensive about standardized tests.
Waltz has to give her kids 13 pre- and post-assessment math and language arts CFAs. They’re repetitive and slow-going because she has to do them with each child, one-by-one, she said. She just finished the preliminary assessments, and it is already time for her to test again.
Russell leans closer to Waltz as she scribbles notes.
I keep more data than what’s in the gradebook
CFAs — common formative assessments corporation-wide
-6 weeks one-on-one assessment
-helpful that these are created for trickier standards
-some are unrealistic
Now is when Russell learns about the more complicated aspects of the job. Beyond juggling the attention of nearly 20 5-year-olds at once, beyond dealing with irritated parents, beyond being on her feet all day and working in a place that constantly smells of dirty feet, sweat and cafeteria food, there are bigger challenges. It’s not the first time Russell has heard the frustrations — how could it be, with a declared statewide teacher shortage? But she’s seeing it through fresh eyes.
Waltz still makes her classroom the best it can be. She improvises and adapts directives to fit her students’ needs.
The tests are nice to show parents benchmark numbers of their kids’ progress, but it’s hard to show progress when there isn’t sufficient time for that progress to occur. It’s hard to test kids who want to color and share stories and dance.
“How are we going to make growth if we haven’t had the time to do the teaching?” Waltz asks.
Russell nods like she understands. She writes down what she hears.
I wish they would trust my professional judgment.
***
On the way to pick up the kids from recess, Russell asks Waltz if she thought her schooling prepared her to manage her own classroom — an especially relevant question because Waltz graduated from IU only a few years ago.
“Education is changing all the time,” Waltz says. It was impossible for the School of Education to fully prepare her, she adds.
When Waltz was in school, the required literacy block did not exist yet, so it was difficult to adjust to. The state mandate, approved in March 2011, stipulates the full 90 minutes be dedicated to phonics, vocabulary and comprehension — not writing, which can complicate the day’s schedule, Russell learns. It must be uninterrupted — no bathroom breaks.
After this semester of field experience, Russell will do a semester of student teaching in Piñon, Arizona, and then it’s into the real world and a real classroom all to herself.
She isn’t naïve. She said she knows even after full workdays, she will have to plan lessons and she will be tired and probably cry a lot during her first year. But she said she’s a geek at heart and loves a good challenge.
Her dad works 60-hour weeks as a truck driver, and he hates his job. All he ever wanted for her and her brother was for them to find jobs they would love. And as often as those voices play in her head — “you don’t want this job” — she knows they’re wrong.
When she reaches the kids on the playground to lead them back inside to their classroom, some of them are already giving her hugs.
***
After recess comes math. The kids get squirrely when Waltz brings out colored cubes and lets them build. Soon, some begin singing.
“It’s a hard-knock life for us,” one sings.
“The sun will come out tomorrow,” sings another.
After Spanish and a snack, the kids are tired. Waltz reads to them from “Junie B. Jones and Her Big Fat Mouth,” wherein, at the moment, Junie B. is conflicted because she wants to do three different jobs when she’s older. Her solution is to create a job that has everything she wants — saving people, making art and carrying important keys. But when Big Fat Jim says that job isn’t real and asks Junie B. what it’s called, she doesn’t know what to say.
Waltz asks her class what Junie B’s problem is.
“Big Fat Jim is being mean!”
Yes, but what else?
“She doesn’t know what the name of the job should be.”
Almost there.
“She doesn’t know what job she wants.”
Exactly.
***
During the writing portion of the day — separate from the literacy block — the students write about Russell. Waltz writes on the board a few phrases for them to copy on their own papers.
This is Miss Russell.
Her birthday is May 1.
She will be 22.
She likes to read.
They slowly scratch the phrases into paper. Some are quicker than others and spend more time on their picture at the bottom of the page, which is supposed to reflect something Russell likes to do. Waltz encourages them to draw something other than Russell reading.
“Miss Russell, what else do you like to do?” a blonde girl asks as the kids grovel around Russell for her attention.
The day ends with a “brain break.” Waltz plays dancing videos on her projector screen, and the kids somehow still have energy to prance around and sing. They know the words, and this is the most coveted part of their day.
“Are you gonna dance?” a girl with a brown-haired bob asks.
Russell blinks, caught off guard.
“Should I?”
Moxie nods furiously, but Russell is uncertain.
To Russell, the teacher shortage is terrifying. The teacher situation in Indiana in general is terrifying. The poor pay is one thing, but already she has experienced people looking down on her because of her career choice. They treat her like she doesn’t know anything. Everybody thinks they can be a teacher, but no one is doing it, she says.
It’s a pivotal moment, she says. Either it’s going to change now or it’s not.
Someone has to be a good teacher. So why not her?
