Interview Reflection

James Carter is a sixth grade, middle school, Mathematics teacher. Mr. Carter became a
teacher because he wanted to go into a profession that would allow him to be with his family. He
is an effective teacher and really cares for his students in all aspects. He is the schools former
PBIS Director and he is a strict and positive teacher. He believes that to be an effective teacher
you have to set your standards for how you want your classroom to run, which involves
classroom management, mastery lesson planning, reaching the kids on their level, and having
high expectations. He works with the other math teachers in his school and in the DPS system to
create lesson plans. He believes the best way to learn something is to relate the information to
something that the learner already knows and then project to them why the learner should learn
this now. He approaches the students not as who they are, but as who they can be.
He believes that the definition of Common Core State Standards effects the students
abilities. Students learn material at different levels and by the definition of the Common Core a
teacher has to move on to the next unit because of testing and that has an effect on student(s)
who are at those different learning levels. He speaks on how students are pushed ahead and a
teacher having to sell students on the idea and value of education. Believes students can do the
math, they just have a problem setting-up the information/problems. He leads a lot of
professional development seminars in the school environment. He states that if you come into
teaching seeing it as a job you are going to have some challenges.