Grade 1 Teacher: Stephanie

Stephanie is an experienced elementary teacher who puts much of herself into her work. She is now teaching some of the children of her former students. Stephanie's personality could be characterized as open and caring. Although she often gripes about the impact of the ever-increasing paperwork burden for teachers today, her overt sense of humour keeps her young at heart. She uses laughter to reduce tension and anxiety, particularly when she looks at her second generation students and the power structures that keep them in the same position as their parents. She struggles to define the purpose of schooling.

Stephanie's dominant mode of teaching often involves a group lesson with presentation of new material on a blackboard. Students sometimes work through exercises provided on worksheets as Stephanie roams among the desks and comments on the students' work; offering individual attention as needed. In this way, she achieves a fairly high level of interaction between herself and her students. Sometimes, she questions them on their work so that they must indicate what they are doing.

Stephanie regularly motivates and rewards students with small tokens she buys and her classroom is seasonally decorated with many items that she has purchased at her own expense. Class discussion is an important part of Stephanie's classes. Because she believes it fosters effective language learning, each Monday they share what they did on the weekend in a circle time activity.