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Teacher Feature
Derence Carpenter, 5th grade teacher, Coronado Heights Elementary School
There are a million things 5th-graders need to learn, Derence Carpenter says, and he enjoys teaching every single one. Carpenter, in his eighth year as a teacher at Coronado Heights Elementary School, takes time below to share his enthusiasm for teaching 5th-graders.
I knew when I was in high school that I wanted to work with kids. I didn't think I really wanted to become a teacher, though. In time I realized that I needed to listen to the affirmation coming from people I knew that I should work with kids in the setting of a classroom.
 Some of my favorite lessons in class are the active learning activities we have with hands-on materials for science. I love when the students have to measure the amount of edible parts of a banana or the amount of sugar that is in a piece of chewing gum. To begin with, we always have a prediction to spark what we expect to find, and then we get busy – actively busy.
I am better at learning when I can learn by doing, so I love being able to present a lesson in that way to my kids. I know that as they actively participate, they are acquiring knowledge and experience through the experiment. When I hear from their parents that "they came home talking" about what they did, I know they had something to teach. That is when I have no doubt that they learned something from a lesson.
I know children are learning when I am able to see the expression on their face that shows they are either thinking or that they just "got it." That expression usually leads to the interaction that makes a lesson come more alive than you may have anticipated. When children apply that "aha" moment toward interaction, you know they are processing in their own minds. Many times this is a key to flip that same switch in the minds of other students.
If I feel that a child seems to have lost interest in school, I try to get a little more involved with that child by focusing on who they are outside of school. I learn so much about who my kids are by getting to know what they do at home, on the weekends or over the summer.
If I am able to do so, I make time to attend a game they play in, a recital they are performing or a play at their church. It is not easy to commit myself to their activities, but it helps me to reach out to them in a way to develop a new relationship with that child. When I do, I many times see the children try to "pull their weight" a little more when they have to see me in the classroom again. They also have a new connection with me that the other kids don't have. A child really thrives on being able to say that their teacher came to their game, and they wear a new pride that others may have not seen before.
There are a million other lessons that are learned in the life of a 5th-grader, and they aren’t just in academics. Much of what I enjoy about working with 5th-graders is the "other stuff" that helps define and develop them into better young people.
I am always thankful to see growth in each student from the beginning of the year to the end of the year. When I get the chance to point out the growth I’ve seen in them, it is awesome to see the light turn on in their minds as they realize it as well.
Parental support and involvement are essential to a child's education. I know that it is not easy for everyone to take time to sit down and work with their children on school work, but it makes a tremendous influence toward the accountability of that student. In my observation of my students, as well as within my own home, when the child knows that the parents are expecting to see what they are working on, they apply themselves more toward getting the work done. They know that they can't get away with not doing the work, and it helps to keep them more responsible.
Even though I am a teacher, it doesn't mean that I know everything. Sometimes parents may know a trick or another way of teaching an objective, and students have the opportunity to share those ideas with me. I learn much from the kids that I work with everyday. It gives me the opportunity to demonstrate that I can continue to learn, and that sometimes, another way to approach the lesson isn't necessarily bad to consider.
Working with 5th-graders is a challenge, but it is a fun time of life for those children. They are in a transition period. They are continually realizing that they like being kids, but they also like realizing that they are becoming more mature and ready to move on.
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