"The Beginning of the Road to the Future"

Middle Paxton Elementary

Do you remember the very first day of your first year of school? It might seem hard to remember but it was the start of your long road to success. For many Kindergarten students walking through the big, heavy, glass door into a tall, brick building seems terrifying. Just the beginning of the journey the children will have, they go down the hall and say goodbye to Mom and Dad and enter into a room they have never seen before. At the age of five or six years old this can be a very difficult transition for students to make. Luckily for the Kindergarteners at Middle Paxton Elementary School they receive a fantastic, helpful teacher, Michelle Bangert, who makes a seemingly difficult transition easier for her students.

Michelle Bangert became very involved with teaching Sunday School at her church and she babysat for as long as she can remember. She wanted to coach sports after college which definitely proved teaching was the right job for her. "It often feels as though it was what I always wanted to do," she shares with me with a huge smile on her face. The passion she has for the job and the children in her class when working with them every day shows she is exactly where she wants to be. She believes her involvement in high school and the leadership roles she took on as an athlete helped to shape the skills that have helped with her success in the field of teaching. Her job allows her to do what she loves while still having time for her husband and four year old daughter, Layke. Mrs. Bangert's Classroom Mrs. Bangert spends many days over the summer getting supplies and the classroom ready for the new students she will receive each year. When you walk into the class, warm, welcoming posters fill the walls. The smell of crayons and glue sticks welcomes you. Four hexagon tables with six chairs at each one hold the crayon nametags with each child’s name. Maroon carpet and cream tile cover the floors of the class. Bright yellow chair pockets line the chairs so the students have a place to put the folder they need to bring back every day. The tables house baskets holding crayons, pencils, glue sticks, scissors and erasers for the children to use. The walls contain many alphabet strips and number lines which will help the class for the entire year. A giant calendar, job chart, and word pocket line the easel sitting on the edge of the carpet. A cozy brown chair sits in the back of the room with a shelf full of books that Mrs. Bangert reads to the students at story time. With the classroom ready to go, Mrs. Bangert is ready for her students to come in on the first day of school.

As the students file in on the first day of class, Mrs. Bangert gives each student a sticker nametag until she figures out all their names. The student find their way to their seats, with some help, at the table that they will sit in for the year. After all the students file in Mrs. Bangert explains some of the things in and around the classroom. She shows them the grey racks that have bright yellow hooks where they can hang their backpacks and coats when they come in the room every morning. She tells them some of the expectations she has for the classroom – no running, always use kind words, no hitting, inside voices, respect the materials, etc. The whole first week of school, mainly spent giving the students the rules and expectations of the classroom, makes it difficult to get the students into a routine and schedule they will follow for the year.

As the second week of school begins many changes take place in the classroom environment. The students seem more comfortable with the classroom setting and they begin to talk more. The students also start interacting with each other which Mrs. Bangert loves to see. Mrs. Bangert states when the second week starts she can actually start teaching the students new material. The second week brings more excitement to the classroom, with the children eager to learn. Each child receives a paper to do for morning work once the second week starts. After the bell rings at nine o’clock and the Pledge is said, the students need to find their assign seat on the carpet and get ready for the morning routine. The job chart changes each week and children get to do small tasks around the classroom, weather, temperature, date, number of days in school, etc., and report back to the class. Mrs. Bangert teaches them a new letter of the alphabet, the date, and gives them a preview of what the day will consist of. Once they learn all the capital letters, they will go back and learn all the lower case letters. Lower case letters seem more difficult for the students to learn and write because they need to distinguish between a giraffe (top line) or puppy dog letter (middle line). They then go back to their seats to practice the new letter.

Wet-Dry-Try Chalkboard Method

After they practice with the Wet (sponge), Dry (paper towel), Try (chalk) method on a chalkboard, the students clean up and go to the story chair for story time. Mrs. Bangert always gets the children to answer questions about the stories. Today they read the story Chrysanthemum and learned about bucket filling and bucket dipping, how to define character, the setting, theme of the story, and why not to make fun of others. Once they finish with storytime, the children go back to their seats and do writing and math. Snack time, many students favorite time of day, comes next and right afterwards they get to go to recess. At the end of recess they come back in and work on some more schoolwork for an hour and they get to go home. Mrs. Bangert then gets to have an hour break before the second set of Kindergarteners come in for the afternoon. 

Elementary teachers, who do so much for each child that walks into their classroom, do not receive near enough credit. For children that may not have the best home life, teachers often provide a very steady environment for them. Most teachers also feel very connected to the students at the end of the year and have a hard to see them go. A typical day for a teacher begins around seven in the morning and they often stay in their classroom until five. Mrs. Bangert reveals, “although the schedule is the same, the day is far from typical when you are dealing with five and six year olds.” When working as an elementary school teacher, you need to have flexibility. Sometimes your day might not go as planned and you need to work around whatever comes up. A teacher cannot get frazzled with every little thing that happens because that makes the kids get frazzled as well. “There are always students that are challenging for a variety of reasons. Some have special needs like autism, some have behavior problems and some just need additional help.” Teachers have to prepare to help the students who need extra attention and provide a strong learning foundation for all the students.

If we did not have teachers like Mrs. Bangert, who makes the transition for students much easier, school could be dreadful for many children. She makes the learning environment a welcoming place for all the different students she has. The amount of time and effort she puts in her work shows her passion for the job. Mrs. Bangert most loves “seeing the growth my students make between the beginning of the year and the end of the year. The excitement and wonderment that some of them show when something finally ‘clicks’ is priceless.” She enjoys running into former students who remember her and see how far they have gotten. Her favorite advice to give to anyone, “don’t forget that you can even learn something from a bad experience.” Take what life gives you and try to make the best you can out of any situation.