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Ruth's avatar

This whole debate holds the premise that the teacher-student relationship is healthy and positive. Did I miss the “worry” of a student that is stuck with a teacher in a negative loop and can’t reinvent him/her self? I’ve seen many fellow students who chose to shed a “disrespectful / class clown / under achiever” demeanor as they matured and were given a fresh start with a teacher that hadn’t already formed an opinion/relationship.

In other words - changing of environment can foster growth (and vise versa).

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Lauren Huddleston's avatar

I very much respect Matthew Kraft and am so glad to see his voice included. I worry that there's a broad brush approach here to the feasibility of teachers to move from one grade to another. In my experience as a teacher, some educators are learning the content just before (or at the same time!) they are teaching it - they are not experts in content, pedagogy, community engagement, communication, etc. I actually think MK is underselling the level of burnout this would cause. Any new teacher knows that a large part of the first year in a new grade is the time commitment to creating materials and designing lessons - and at a time when educators don't feel like the curriculum they teach is well-supplied (in other words, they're doing a lot of work to supplement it themselves), this is a big flashing red light for me. Love the discussion, though!

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