The Shift
I taught elementary grades 3-5 for ten years before I decided middle schools Science was best for me!!. Although I'm working with a different age group, my goals for STEM education have remained the same, and I still teach in the same county. I've been teaching middle school science for 4 years and have had the pleasure of teaching 6th, 7th and 8th grade students. I enjoy what I do now more than ever because I finally have the opportunity to teach nothing but science all day long, what more could I ask for? One of my primary reasons for leaving elementary school was because I wasn't able to teach science nearly as much as I wanted to, nor did time given allow for it. In middle school, it's a class by itself so there's no circumventing science education, one stipulation I love.
The Difference
You may think teaching middle school students would be different from teaching elementary school students but really its not. At least not very much. Both age groups can and want to learn, both are dealing with growing pains and both still have quite a bit to learn. The biggest difference between elementary aged children and middle school aged children is their age and their age of course reflects the types of behaviors they may participate in. I've also found middle school students to be more verbally expressive than elementary school students. They're older, and in most cases wiser which can lead to a host of variations. I've found some of them to be convincingly manipulative and cunning, sometimes for seemingly minute reasons, especially towards students and teachers they don't like. Unfortunately some of the same reasons why I like teaching children this age are some of the are reasons I don't. I've been cursed at, shoved, recorded without my consent and verbally attacked in other ways during these three years, something I never experienced and would have never imagined while teaching elementary aged children. Elementary aged friends are much kinder and respectful than their middle school counterparts and most middle school students get to middle school and act as if they've forgotten everything they learned in elementary school...including their manners. On the other hand, thankfully the majority of the middle school students I've taught have been eager to learn, respectful and hardworking.
The Payoff
The best thing about what I do is what I do. I'm a middle school science teacher! I get to dispel flat earth and other humorous theories, make things smolder and smoke and teach the future something new everyday. Science as a subject is like none other. It's the only subject that can change it's history. Science, unlike many of the other subjects, is not fixed; new inventions, ideas and ways at looking at previously researched phenomena are discovered everyday. Concepts taught in previous years may be invalid this year, and making sure what you're conveying is current keeps a great science teacher on their toes. Another reason why I enjoy doing what I do is because I love science and learning new things. I have notebooks upon notebooks full of notes and diagrams all related to science concepts I teach or have taught in the past. Some of these diagrams I've actually had made into posters I display in my classroom. The purpose of recording the notes I have is so I can answer as many questions as possible (before telling them "I don't know so let's figure it out together."), and since starting these notebooks, I haven't come across too many content related questions I can't answer. :) When planning to teach an unfamiliar concept I research and take notes on it and aim to gain a college level understanding of it, then I assess myself on the concept in a variety of ways and create some type of digital organizer to display key or difficult points. Then and only then can I consider myself ready to teach it to others. What do I gain? I gain a wealth of new information about a novice concept!! What do my students gain? Everything!
Comments