Teacher ASSISTants?

Yet another item in the "new-for-me" category of teaching at a school for the deaf: lots of TA's to work with. In three years of teaching public school, I never had any kind of teacher assistant. This week, we got 3 new TA's -- one in the 9th grade class, one in 6th grade, and one in the "low-end" 6th grade (replacing the lady who retired).

In theory, this is a nice thing. The students I'm working with often need a lot of individual attention, and a teacher can only spread herself so thin.

The Problem: What does a math teacher do with TA's who don't know math?

The answer my cooperating teacher came up with (and it can only happen because I've taken over enough classes to give her sufficient time to do it) is to put together resource booklets for the TAs with information about the topics the kids will be covering.

So who exactly are these people assisting? They're essentially extra students for the teacher to educate, so they're not assisting her that much. It's not going to take the kids long to see through the superficial nature of the TA's knowledge, and they'll figure out if they really want to know what to do, they should ask the teacher or the student teacher, because we know what's going on. So they're not really assisting the kids that much. Actually, a teacher has to be on her toes to make sure the TA's don't give students wrong information (I've already seen it happen).

On the bright side, with the resource booklets, I'm pretty sure the 9th grade and regular 6th grade TA's will be somewhat okay. The thing is, I really have no idea how to use them. Yet another thing they don't teach in teacher-preparation programs.

On an amusing note... Tomorrow when my university supervisor comes to observe, there will be at least one class where there is a one-to-one ratio of kids to adults in the room -- 5 students, myself, my cooperating teacher, my supervisor, one of the students' 1-to-1 aide, and the TA for the rest of the class. We had to count and make sure we'll have enough chairs.