Newest Reality TV Show - Are You Smarter than a 5th Grade Teacher

[Scuba]

Have you heard about the next planned "Survivor" show?

Three businessmen and three businesswomen will be dropped in an elementary school classroom for 1 school year. Each business person will be provided with a copy of his/her school district's curriculum, and a class of 20-25 students. Each class will have a minimum of five learning-disabled children, three with A.D.H.D., one gifted child, and two who speak limited English. Three students will be labeled with severe behavior problems.

Each business person must complete lesson plans at least 3 days in advance, with annotations for curriculum objectives and modify, organize, or create their materials accordingly. They will be required to teach students, handle misconduct, implement technology, document attendance, write referrals, correct homework, make bulletin boards, compute grades, complete report cards, document benchmarks, communicate with parents, and arrange parent conferences. They must also stand in their doorway between class changes to monitor the hallways. In addition, they will complete fire drills, tornado drills, and drills for shooting attacks each month.

They must attend workshops, faculty meetings, and attend curriculum development meetings. They must also tutor students who are behind and strive to get their 2 non-English speaking children proficient enough to take the SOLS tests. If they are sick or having a bad day they must not let it show.

Each day they must incorporate reading, writing, math, science, and social studies into the program. They must maintain discipline and provide an educationally stimulating environment to motivate students at all times. If all students do not wish to cooperate, work, or learn, the teacher will be held responsible.

The business people will only have access to the public golf course on the weekends, but with their new salary, they will not be able to afford it. There will be no access to vendors who want to take them out to lunch, and lunch will be limited to thirty minutes, which is not counted as part of their work day. The business people will be permitted to use a student restroom, as long as another survival candidate can supervise their class.

If the copier is operable, they may make copies of necessary materials before, or after, school. However, they cannot surpass their monthly limit of copies.

The business people must continually advance their education, at their expense, and on their own time. The winner of this Season of Survivor will be allowed to return to their job.

Pass this to your friends who think teaching is easy, and to the ones that know it is hard.

[Takket]

1. title suggest......

Maybe this show should really be called "How to get 6 businesspersons to commit suicide"

[lbrtbell]

2. So you think gifted children are a problem?

Sorry, I don't support anything that implies that intelligent kids are somehow problematic. Gifted children should be welcomed as the blessing they are to teachers--quick and eager to learn.

I'll never understand why so many teachers hate smart kids.

[Scuba]

4. Huh? What?

[Ishoutandscream2]

5. Teachers hate smart kids? Damn, we loved them

I'm going to guess that the implication is that, yes, gifted kids are also considered at risk. They do operate at another level.

[1monster]

6. Woosh! The idea here is that the teacher is overwhelmed with work...

Gifted children are not a problem.... Unless they are understimulatedbecause the other kids in the classroom are in no way up to the gifted child's speed. And that happens when gifted children are placed in a regular classroom.

I no longer sub in elementary school classes, but when I did, I once had a kindergarten class where one child was always tormenting the other students. I spent a lot of time in that classroom because the teacher's father had cancer and she had to take time off to get her father to his treatments.

After a while, I began to note that the tormentor's work was always done faster, with no errors, and neater than the other children in the class. I started making sure that I always had more work for him to do when he finished before the other children.

He was no longer bored. He took pride in his work and always had something to do. And he stopped tormenting the other students.

But, in this secenario, the teacher had 20 to 24 other students, three with specific learning disabilities who needed special lesson plans and accommodations, two with Attention Deficit with Hyperactivity Disorder (which means constant redirection of those children at best), two with inadequate English language to understand lessons, and the rest of the students of varying abilities.

Teachers don't, by any means, hate gifted children. Usually teachers find gifted kids to be a breath of fresh air. But making sure the gifted child gets the education he/she desesrves is very difficult in that kind of classroom.

[Ishoutandscream2]

3. That second paragraph = that sounds like my 3rd period class

I taught my last year. I got smart and became a school counselor, even though that is certainly not easy.