The Teacher: Part I

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.”