Classrooms today, particularly the lower grades have hidden gems called the Teaching Assistants. Sometimes, these are teachers in training but more often than not mothers of school age children who take up a job to match their children's school hours. Talk to them, and they will tell you that they stay, because they enjoy the company of the kids, long after their own grow up. But they are not given any credit for the work they do, simply because they do not have the requisite degree. This is in spite of the fact they spend far more time with each child, and will remember what each child is doing or has done. The teacher dumps a whole lot of responsibility on them, and some are far more experienced in the classroom than the newly qualified teacher.
I am now beginning to believe that a good Teaching Assistant can help your child far more than the teacher. In fact in some classes the kids have a far warmer relationship with the TAs than with the teacher. Unfortunately, the TAs have little or no room to take any decisions or even comment, come what may. This brings the classroom to a standstill. I have seen young teachers with hardly any experience speaking very rudely to the TA who have at least 6 plus more experience than them. This ruins the atmosphere in the class and the children are affected. The TAs are expected to shoulder responsibility, but get no share of the praise. With the concept of streaming the class teacher brushes off parent questions with a simple "I don't know" which I think is not acceptable. Our teachers did not have assistants and they had 65 children in each class, and they knew the children. Now teachers crib if there are more than 25 and claim that they cannot manage even with assistants.
The school managements have to have some kind of guidelines for division of responsibility and weightage for experience. The teaching assistants must get more credit for all the work they put it for it is they who are the unsung heroes of the classroom.
I am now beginning to believe that a good Teaching Assistant can help your child far more than the teacher. In fact in some classes the kids have a far warmer relationship with the TAs than with the teacher. Unfortunately, the TAs have little or no room to take any decisions or even comment, come what may. This brings the classroom to a standstill. I have seen young teachers with hardly any experience speaking very rudely to the TA who have at least 6 plus more experience than them. This ruins the atmosphere in the class and the children are affected. The TAs are expected to shoulder responsibility, but get no share of the praise. With the concept of streaming the class teacher brushes off parent questions with a simple "I don't know" which I think is not acceptable. Our teachers did not have assistants and they had 65 children in each class, and they knew the children. Now teachers crib if there are more than 25 and claim that they cannot manage even with assistants.
The school managements have to have some kind of guidelines for division of responsibility and weightage for experience. The teaching assistants must get more credit for all the work they put it for it is they who are the unsung heroes of the classroom.
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