Robert Butler writes:
-> As a band director, I work with all band students in my district from
-> grades 6 through 12.  I have seen no disadvantages to this, and the
-> advantages are many:
-> 1. The kids know what to expect from you.
-> 2. You know what to expect from the kids.
-> 3. You get to work with a lot of different levels of development and
-> cirriculum.
-> 4. Students feel more comfortable to confide in you, they trust you
-> more, and as a result you understand them better as individuals.
->
-> Anyone else care to add to the list?
I have seen some disadvantages, well, one.
It is possible that a student doesn't like a particular teacher. Since
you teach Band, I assume an elective (?), and are the only band
instructor (?), you are probably not likely to see this. As one of 14
math teachers at our high school, it is entirely possible that a kid
wouldn't like me or my class, and would wish that s/he had a different
math teacher. This happened a few years ago, that a boy, Mike, had me
for Geometry. I guess he just didn't like my no-nonsense, nose to the
grindstone, stop your screwing around approach. Somehow, something about
my class rubbed him the wrong way. When he turned up in my Algebra II
class the following year, he decided to be a trouble maker. :-(
In a conversation with his mother, she owned that it was all Mike's
perceptions and nothing I had done, but that for some reason he just
didn't hit it off with me and this bad attitude was affecting how he
chose to behave, work and study for Algebra II. The following year he
was in a Trig class with a different instuctor, and although I gather
from that instructor that the kid was a jerk (still), at least the kid
didn't mind that class as much as he did mine.
But this is an odd exception. It does happen maybe out of 10 kids that
repeat with a teacher that one would rather have someone else. But it is
something to keep in mind. There have been a few occassions when a
student ended up in my class for the 3rd year in a row, where if another
instructor was also teaching the course, I offered the kid the option to
transfer out.
Usually the kids decline such an offer, because of many of the reasons
you have listed above, especially the fact that they are familiar with
my grading system and my expectations and they know what to expect in my
classroom. This is probably much better for them than the unknown.
Two years ago when I had a calculus class of 36 students (really it was
two classes, one of 17 and one of 19), where 9 of the students had been
with me for 3 years, and of the remaining 27, 25 were with me for their
second year, I had the most outstanding results on the AP exam. I don't
think I will ever be able to match those results again.
Sheila
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