Interview with a K-12 teacher

Holden Costa conducted a podcast interview with a K-12 teacher. The teacher chose teaching as a profession because she loved playing teacher as a child and was good with kids. She found fulfillment in helping others and wanted to make an impact on children's lives. Over the nine years she has been teaching, she has noticed changes in the curriculum to meet students' needs. She loves supporting her students but dislikes the demands of teaching and the limited time to reteach material. Major stressors in teaching include the responsibility for students' progress, workload, and lack of paid time for tasks. COVID-19 had a dramatic impact, with students falling behind academically and socially. Teaching online was challenging, with difficulties in keeping students focused and engaged. If given the chance to start her career again, the teacher would choose a different profession due to the draining nature of teaching and the impact on her personal life. My name is Holden Costa, and I'm doing a podcast regarding my interview with a K-12 teacher. I chose this particular subject from our previous project because she has been a teacher for the longest duration of time, so I figured she could give the best insight and the most accurate responses to these questions. Starting with my first question, why did you select teaching as a profession? Right away, she responded with that when she was a little girl, she loved to play teacher. She'd play in her room with her stuffed animals, and she would make a fake projector with her lamp. Growing up, she loved to babysit, and she was always told how good she was with kids. As she grew older, her passion for working with children stuck. She found fulfillment in helping others, and she just loved children. She knew she could make an impact on a large group of children each year, and then after becoming a teacher, she saw firsthand the importance of reading and the struggles that her students had. This led her to continue her education, and she obtained her master's in education and also became a reading specialist to better support her students. My second question for this teacher was, how long have you been teaching, and what changes have you noticed in the field of teaching over time? She's been a first grade teacher for nine years. She said that she noticed a change in the curriculum over that whole duration of nine years. They've changed reading in the math curriculum several times as research revolves, she said. They adapt their curriculum to better meet the needs of the students. I asked her what it is that she likes and dislikes about teaching right away. She said she loves being a support to her students and creating meaningful relationships. Kind of in comparison to our previous project, she disliked the demand. They're required to teach a vast set of material in every subject area with just a little bit of time. She did not like to say, she said it's sad to say, but in doing so, children get left behind if they don't catch up, or they don't catch on and grasp the material. There's extremely limited time to reteach material and skills, so if they're not taught that in that small amount of time, then they kind of get left behind, and the teacher is just kind of forced to move forward. My next question was, what are the major stressors in the field of teaching? This is actually pretty similar to one of her responses in the previous survey, since she was one of my subjects in that as well. She said being responsible for 25 children's academic progress is a major stressor, and she also mentioned the workload. Teachers have to use their free time to be caught up. She's got to take papers home. She's got to use her own personal time for conferences, report cards, grading, center activities, and lesson plans. She also mentioned that lesson plans can take hours of time on the weekends. It can become overwhelming when you have a family to take care of. There are a lot of tasks that teachers do not get paid for. She also mentioned that student behavior can be a major stressor. The next question was, given the dramatic impact of COVID-19 on our school systems, can you comment on how you and other teachers are affected? Additionally, can you talk about the influence of online education for your students? And to this one, she responded, students in all grade levels were impacted and are drastically behind academically and socially. Teaching remotely was very difficult, and students did not receive the instruction they deserved and needed. As far as online, she mentioned that teaching remotely was very difficult, and students – oh, teaching online was very difficult. She emphasized on the very – excuse me. She said it was hard to keep students focused, engaged, or even attend the Zoom meetings online. So attendance was a big – a big issue with the online education for students. Lastly, I had asked if she were in the position of starting her career over again, would she choose teaching once again? Why or why not? She responded with, at this time right now, she has two children, and she probably would choose a different career. At times, it can be very draining in having patients for 25 students all day, and then continue to have that patient when you get home and carry that through to your own children. That can be draining and difficult for her, and I'd imagine for all teachers. She also mentioned that the workload, again, is very stressful. All teachers work on the weekends when they should have spent that time with their families. And prior to having children, she mentioned the overwhelming amount of work that needed to be done in her free time did not bother her. But now that she does have children, it can become very easy for that to pass over into her life now with children as well. And that does conclude my interview with this teacher. Thank you very much.