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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My daughter says she doesn’t want to return to her in-bounds school this coming school year because “all the teachers yell.”  Truth be told, I have noticed this myself but have never directly discussed it with her before. I appreciate the difficulty teachers must have with managing ES kids, but it does seem like the default for many is yelling: in the classroom, in the hallways, at recess, at pick-up.

Why is this? Is it the default at other elementary schools? (Ours is Ludlow). I’m not trying to disparage LT - it has a lot of good points, too - but I’m interested in others’ experiences. Thanks.[/quote]

I’m curious what grade your kid is in. My only experience with yellers at Ludlow are with folks who are not gen-ed classroom teachers. There is one such teacher that my mostly well-behaved Ker is really not a fan of and I think he must be experiencing it at lunch or recess, because there’s no other obvious overlap.

My kids haven’t complained much about the yelling, but I do think the biggest complaints along these lines tend to be in the K/1st age group and it’s partially because of the sudden increase in classroom expectations with a lot of kids (especially boys) who just aren’t developmentally ready for it. (Note: I am not blaming the boys at all. Modern K is much more akin to 1st grade even 20 years ago and it’s just too much sitting quietly for a lot of kids — especially those on the younger side.)[/quote]

DCPS expectations for K are not age-appropriate, I agree (at a different school). It's especially problematic because the PK program is very informed by childhood development (and the vast majority of PK teachers have masters in early childhood development) so the shift to a K classroom can be abrupt for kids. My DD struggled with it even though she doesn't have trouble sitting still. It was the amount of academic work and the time they spent doing unengaging activities like worksheets or standing in lines to move around the school.

I think some of the K teachers in DCPS do a good job bridging kids from PK to elementary and some do not. My kid was in a team-taught classroom and one of the teachers was great at this (and my kid became super attached to her and is still close to her years later) and the other had moved down to K from previously teaching 1st and 2nd and was much more rigid and my kid got "in trouble" with her more often. Generally it was a for speaking out of turn but this teacher didn't give the kids chances to speak and interact with each other! The expectation that 5 and 6 year olds are going to sit silently and attentively for 6 hours a day is just not realistic.

I think the intense focus on reading in K in DCPS has come at the sacrifice of some better socio-emotional teaching and age-appropriate schedules with more classroom exploration and interactive activities. K should look like a cross between a PK and 1st grade classroom, but in DCPS it just looks like a 1st grade classroom with slightly less advanced material. It's especially hard on the younger kids or any kid who is developmentally a bit behind.[/quote]

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