Teacher Int KP

Karen Paulus, a first-grade teacher, shares insights from her 33 years of teaching. She chose teaching because she loves working with children and found it rewarding. She has seen changes in state testing and curriculum, with a current focus on phonics-based teaching. The most rewarding aspect for her is working with children and continuously improving her teaching. Challenges include communicating with parents about more than just their child and adapting to yearly curriculum changes. Despite the difficulties, she would choose teaching again and appreciates the practical benefits like a pension. For my teacher interview, I interviewed Karen Paulus, who is a first grade teacher at Granite Valley School in Munson, MA. When interviewing Mrs. Paulus, I found a lot of her responses very interesting, and I feel a lot of other teachers, if they were asked the same questions, probably would say about the same thing as she did. Mrs. Paulus selected teaching as her profession when she was 17 in college, and she knew that she loved working with children, so she decided to try teaching as her major. Also at the time, she said that funneled off was an incentive as well, which is why she chose teaching. She has been teaching for 33 years, and one big change that she's seen over the years is state testing. She said the district that she worked in did do standardized testing, but not much high stakes testing. She's also seen the pendulum swing back and forth a few times. She said especially in reading, she's seen phonics only, teaching with basal regions, and now they're back to very heavy phonics-based curriculum at her school, which is called Apple Seeds. She said that what she likes about teaching the most is working with children, and that hasn't changed so far, even after 33 years. She also feels that there's always something to learn, and that she can always improve her teaching every year, which always makes her very excited. When asked about distressors in the field of teaching, she said communicating with parents, because it has fallen largely on teachers, it's not only just about their child, but teachers are also required now to talk to parents about what else is going on in the school besides just what is going on with their children. She also said yearly changes in the curriculum. As soon as she gets materials ready for one curriculum and organized, then she's given another new curriculum that she has to prepare materials for. Also, she said duties outside of teaching, like PLCs, committees, and after school activities. When asked if she was in the position of starting her career over again, if she would choose teaching once again, she said she would. She thinks she would also get a degree as a reading specialist as well. She loves most parts of teaching, and the good outweighs the hard things. It's a job that she feels like she's making a difference, and that's important to her. She also feels that the practical side of her feels fortunate enough to have a pension, because many other jobs do not have such a great benefit.