Teacher Problems

[Madeline Buchanan <mlbuchan@SCOTT.NET>]

I had this problem last year and can see it happening again.  One of our
teachers assigns an entire class (25-30 students) very narrow topics of
which we have limited resources.  The teacher sends the entire class to the
media center to research the topic and uses that period as a break.  Today
while one of the classes was in the media center I peeked in the classroom
where the teacher was using the computer to work on administrative tasks.

What bothers me is the nature of the topics assigned.  The teacher does not
come to the media center first to see if we have enough resources on the
topics so that every member of the class will have something to do.
Although the students did not misbehave, many of them wasted an entire
class period.  The teacher said that the students had information in their
textbooks that they could use but if they were using textbooks, why come to
the media center (unless the teacher sees it as break time)?

Do you have any suggestions as to what can be done?  The teacher is using
the same topics as last year and I can forsee problems because students who
don't have anything to do tend to cause discipline problems.  Also I need
to know if I should require the teacher to be in the media center if the
entire class is sent to do a project.  This morning the teacher explained
the project in the classroom (I found out the topic when the first period
class came in) and sent the class, not darkening the media center door.
Also I need to know what steps I can take to encourage this teacher to see
what resources the media center has before assigning everyone in the class
the same topic.  Many of the students want to use the computers to copy the
same encyclopedia articles and I am not allowing that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Madeline L. Buchanan           Voice:  (205) 838-7620
 Library Media Specialist       Fax:    (205) 838-7622
 W. J. Christian School         Email:  mlbuchan @ scott.net
 725 Mountain Drive             http://www.scott.net/~mlbuchan/
 Birmingham, AL  35206          http://www.bhm.k12.al.us/~wjc/

  W. J. Christian School is a Birmingham, Alabama public school.
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