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More Schools Or More Teachers - Page 2

I think we need more teachers, a whole lot more. Now I can say for the primary school system, maybe the secondary schools need more buildings. The reason why I say we need more primary school teachers is simple. Team teaching. I have personally found this method quite efficient and quite successful. I love Math and the Sciences and as such I love teaching them. A while back another teacher, who liked the language arts area, was teamed up with me. Well I can tell you that worked better than we expected. Plus the fact that the class now had two teachers meant that there was hardly ever a time when the class was without a teacher. Those pupils behaviour improved tremendously and so did their marks, along with the added bonus of self esteem and so forth I can tell you also that the children enjoyed the fact that they had two teachers instead of one. The teachers must compliment each other though for it to work. No sense in putting two math teachers together is there? Hoping for further discussions on this.

Teachers Or Schools More

Interesting. Back in my country, we have three different teachers when you reach 10 years old, you have a Math, Science and Language Arts Teachers, since our primary school system finishes at age 12, the kids have two years to get used to having different teachers and getting a taste of what secondary school will be all about.

I agree with you, I think team teaching is a very good idea. It seems like in Trinidad we need both, more schools and more qualified teachers as well.

More Schools Or More Teachers Caribbean / Tobago & Trinidad

I know of a school in Trinidad that practices that approach. There are different teachers for the different disciplines at SEA level and there is also a teacher specially assigned for remedial work with the children who have special needs.

Page 2 Teachers Or Schools More

Yes this happens in some schools right now but in most cases its because principals have a few 'extra' teachers hanging around and they must account for what all teachers are doing at school. To be fair to the Ministry though, I know that there is a shortage of teachers right now, so putting two teachers per class is just physically impossible now. Maybe as you said putting two per class should be just at the senior level, that is Standard Four and Five. I know of a school right now though that has the two SEA teachers(yeah its a small school) teaching both classes at a time depending on what subject area it is. For Math and Science the children go to Teacher A and for Language they go to Teacher B. The two classes together number close to 50 but the teachers told me that it works for them. I guess this will work for the exam classes but I certainly don't want to teach near 50 children at one time. Children will fall through the cracks this way, the individual attention won't be there. Happy for these discussions, hope they continue

Teachers Or Schools More

I presently teach in a room with another teacher we each have 22 children. We decided to team teach so we could really help the weaker students with their reading. I have found that it works well if we plan properly. We also got some material from the Ministry that we use for Language and it has helped us tremendously. The Language syllabus is so wide and we try to make connections across the curriculum to make the job easier for the children to understand. The programme shows you how to group children and have them engaged in learning while the teacher can attend to a specific group and help them. I wish more of the teachers would use it so thery could help their children improved. It takes a lot of preparation though.

More Schools Or More Teachers

The lack of teachers, especially primary school teachers is reflective of 2 things.
First, the inability of the Teaching Service Commission to interview in good time, and second, the low wages offered to teachers who are responsible for providing foundation to our young ones are not enough to invite or retain teachers.
Ovrall, although the salaries for (all) teachers has improved over the years, it still is not on par with the External Labour Market.
What is supposed to entice men into a field that is fast becoming the domain of females? The CPO (Chief Personnel Officer) is fighting for a marginal percentage while Government Ministers have received several over the last few years.

More Schools Or Teachers - Page 2

Again ill be the hard headed one and say both. The government needs to rework all the money they spend on advertisement, campaigning, and foreign aid and fix the issue's at home first. Not just at the grade school level either, College and speciality schools as well. One of the reasons we are falling so far behind the rest of the world is our educational system.