"You can’t run a classroom when ten kids can’t follow directions”

Principal: Sara’s a star teacher. I’m not sure why this class is so tough on her.

Parent: I pay tuition, I do homework with my kids, I do my part. If the teacher’s struggling, that’s her problem. I don’t want to hear about it.

Sara: I’ve been teaching for ten years. I want to reach all my students, but this is beyond me.

Sara Markowitz looks like you’d expect a teacher to look: warm smile, open face, navy blazer over a crisp white blouse. She arrives, on the advice of her principal, with a clipboard and pen, ready to take notes to be able to better help her students.

“I’ve been teaching second grade for ten years already but recently it’s been getting harder,” she confesses.

“In what way?”

Sara puts down her pen and gestures animatedly. “Well, you know, in every class there are the top few kids who learn everything right away and are generally more advanced. Then there’s the bulk of the class in the middle, and a few kids who struggle to keep up.

“I’m finding that each year, more and more kids are struggling. Forget about covering the curriculum, it’s getting complicated just to manage the classroom.”

Like a true teacher, she gives an example to illustrate. “It’s like a family around the Shabbos table. When it’s time for everyone to go and wash, there’s always one kid who needs extra prompting or extra direction — don’t fight, there’s the cup, go sit down. But if all the kids around the table need extra prompting for every step, it disrupts the flow of the meal.”

“How many kids would you say are struggling to function in the classroom?”

Sara thinks. “Probably nine or ten. That’s a significant percentage.”

Sara identifies some issues that her students struggle with. “They have no idea what’s going on in Chumash or parshah. They can’t follow the storyline [This indicates
weak language comprehension]. And when we do worksheets, they’re totally lost [This indicates difficulty processing and following directions].

”Even after I explain what to do, they look blank. You can’t run a classroom when ten kids can’t follow directions.”

“Have you reached out to the parents?”

Sara nods. “Of course. But parents don’t want to hear of it. ‘I pay so much tuition, the classes are too big, if the teacher can’t manage that doesn’t mean my kid needs remediation.’ ” She sighs. “And I get it. They do pay a lot of tuition. And it’s true that if the classes were smaller I could probably help each student more.”

“But,” she clarifies, “that might not even be the best solution. Because these kids are in second grade already. They should be able to understand a story and follow directions without extra help.”

“You’re one hundred percent right,” I tell Sara. “What we need to do is teach the struggling students how to do these things for themselves. Let’s start with one thing at a time. Which issue is most urgent?”

Sara considers this, then says, “I think direction following, because that affects every moment of their day. At home, too,” she adds. “Sometimes I wonder how these kids function at home.” We talk a bit more about specific students and their issues.

When we’ve reached the end of the session, Sara stands up. “I’m already feeling more optimistic than when I came in,” she says, “and I’m looking forward to our next session.”

Originally featured in Family First, Issue 657. D. Himy is a speech-language pathologist in private practice and creator of the Link-It and STARPower curriculums. The fictional characters in this column represent typical client profiles.