Freshman teacher

A student asked me today when Mr. Smith quit being a freshman teacher. He has always taught a freshman science course and this year they let him teach a senior course as well. I tried explaining that we are high school teachers and it depends on what they give us to teach what grades we end up teaching. This year I have all upper classmen. The last four years I had sophomores.

We are not like second or third grade teachers.

When I realized how much trouble I was having explaining this to a student I realized why Mr. Hulk considers me to be a remedial teacher. Duh, I teach remedial students ergo I must be a remedial teacher.

If he only knew how difficult it is to teach a concept to students when the concept is outside their realm of ability. Creating a scaffold to help them takes a lot more work than working with kids who have ability and motivation.