ABSTRACT
A high school senior recently spent the last several weeks of the school year as an intern in an elementary school. At one point she worked in a kindergarten classroom with a new teacher. It was pretty rough. The teacher seemed to be yelling at the kids all the time, and the student spent a lot of her time talking to kids who had just been yelled at, trying to calm them down and get them back on track and able to do their work. After about a week, another more experienced teacher invited her to work in her classroom. The difference was like night and day. This teacher never raised her voice. She spoke directly to the children, looking them in the eye. She didn’t talk down to them, the senior explained, but she made herself clear. The class was so much calmer. The kids worked more, and they enjoyed it.
