Re: To Teach Fifth Grade or Younger?

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If anyone with experience could
> give me any information on your fifth grade experience I
> would greatly appreciate it! Thank you so much!

I love teaching 5th through 8th. In CA, that means having both
a multiple with supplemental authorizations and a single
subject credential, which I have. I don't care for the lower
grade (primary), because the kids are too dependent for my
taste. In fifth, you will encounter some attitude, but if you
teach with a constant sense of humor that will quickly
evaporate. We play many curriculum related games, act a little
silly at times, and enjoy the day.

Your biggest challenge, depending where you are, is that you
will need to be extremely familiar with the standards from the
lower grades so you can quickly identify knowledge gaps. If
you make a map for yourself showing what is taught when in
which grade, you can identify skills that were not learned
earlier and patch those for the low kids. For the kids who
need enrichment, make the same kind of map but spiral up the
grade levels. For example, we just finished an Algebra I unit
for my high performers.

You will need to develop the teacher "freeze and stare" along
with an arched eyebrow. This is useful for those kids who tend
to call out answers while you are teaching, and is much more
effective than other methods since the kids who do this tend to
be very intelligent and highly involved in your instruction (so
much so that to them your lesson is directed to them alone).
Stopping mid sentence and being quiet controls the class very
effectively, particularly if you then say, "I am waiting on you
to listen" in a soft voice. Keeping calm at all times is also
necessary.

I have a minor in theater, so I use props and body movements to
bring home an idea. That may or may not suit your temperament.
Kids at that age, however, love it.

I use Cornell notes for all subjects, and the kids maintain
spirals for each subject. For homework, they summarize a
lesson we covered in a short form essay of three paragraphs
(even for math). I rotate the subjects they write about. We
also use a timer in class for writing, and by the end of the
year they can produce a well-executed five paragraph expository
essay in 30 minutes. My feedback from our feeder middle school
is that the kids do extremely well because they know how to
listen, take notes, and summarize. The parents also like it,
because they read the homework summaries and know what the
child is studying.

I prefer U.S. History to California history, so I like fifth
grade better than fourth. I also love chemistry and life
science, which is part of our curriculum. Make sure you love
the curriculum of the level you are teaching. You will be
doing four or five daily preps, depending upon whether or not
you are required to teach PE (we are). We are also required to
complete ALL of the textbook material in math, language arts,
and science by the time we do state testing in April. That
means we have to come up with a month of instruction using
materials we have to provide that are then approved by the
District Office.

That "gap" month is often a surprise to new teachers. I did
not have to face that when I taught middle school (7th), but at
5th there are many more CA standards than we have time to teach
earlier in the year (nutrition, health education, family life,
art, music, and dance are a few). Fourth doesn't face the same
gap, since science and social studies are not tested in fourth.
That means that curriculum can be spread out to fill the "gap".

The hardest part for me is the amount of reporting that the
district requires from fifth. We are seen as the culmination
point of elementary, so we are expected to identify any
students who require RSP or SDC services who were not
identified in lower grades. That means you have to learn to
recognize things like ADD, ADHD, Autism, ODD, and similar
conditions. There is a lot of paperwork involved, as well as
multiple parent meetings. Fourth doesn't have that same hurdle
here. We also have many ELL students from various countries
who enter the U.S. with older students. We are expected to
handle CELDT level 1 students, and bring them up to CELDT level
3 performance in a year. That often means teaching English as
a second language and knowing how to use SDAIE techniques for
instruction. You are expected to spend at least 30 minutes a
day doing individualized ELD instruction with those students
who have not been reclassed to English Proficient status. The
rest of the students in your room have to be engaged in a
silent activity during that time, so be prepared when you plan
your day. We also have to identify students who are not grade
level proficient in math and reading, and do everything we can
to bring them up to speed. That means working with them in
small groups, while again having the rest of the class working
on some curriculum-related quiet activity. It also means
having assessments at hand to administer to determine their
proficiency gains. I am expected to have fluency passages that
range from K-4 to assess Reading and math assessments for the
core math standards from K-4. That can get expensive, unless
you have learned how to write grant proposals. Meanwhile, the
parents of the high kids expect you to have enrichment
materials available in all subject areas for challenge work.
Having the resources to fulfill all of the expectations and the
time to do the reporting means that teaching fifth takes a lot
of your personal time. It tends not to work well for teachers
with young families of their own.

I hope this information helps you decide. Let us know what you
pick.
 

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