A day in the teaching life of...Suzy Manuela Prajea

This teacher left the politics of Romanian education to teach in North Carolina in the US – and she’s happier than ever
9th December 2018, 2:02pm

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A day in the teaching life of...Suzy Manuela Prajea

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This year, I left my home country of Romania, where I taught maths for 28 years, to begin a new teaching life at Monroe High School in North Carolina, America.

In Romania, the politics had infiltrated the school system. Schools were no longer about education and normality, but about the thirst for conflict, power and money. But I remain devoted to the profession.

I grew up with a love for maths, a love for children and huge admiration for my middle-school teacher. It was the combination of all of these things that led me to choose to teach. The success of my students, and the possibility to influence their futures is what keeps me in teaching.

Despite all the adversities that I faced in Romania, I was determined to leave the country, but not the profession. I have not a trace of regret about leaving for the US.

In comparison with my home country, the US has a very professional system of education, and I’m really proud to be teaching within it. It’s more complex than it appears: the high scores of the international assessments are not the unique measure of an educational system. Beyond the academic success, there is an underlying need to ensure that, through education, students will create a better future for themselves and for the world.

Educating citizens, growing young minds based on principles and moral values, and developing academic success are all top priorities. Public transportation of the students to school and back home, school lunch, counsellors, nursery, clubs, coaches, athletics - all are examples of indubitable efforts to support education.

At Monroe, I have between 17 and 25 students in a classroom. In Romania, I had 32-37 students. I’ve found that the fewer the students in the classroom, the better I can help them to flourish with their academic work, leadership, and relate to them on a personal level.

Monroe, North Carolina

I’m up at 6am every day, and it takes me half an hour to drive to school. When I reach school, I check for any letters with the administration, the inbox of my school account, and prepare the class folders. I also make sure that anyone who missed class the day before has everything they need to catch up.

At 8am, I welcome 9th-grade pupils into the homeroom and make sure they’ve got all their homework done. Then I teach three classes of 85 minutes each. There’s a five-minute class change between them, and I’m out in the corridor making sure the students all head properly to their next class.

As the students enter, they’re met with assignments and handouts, which are placed on the desks. My classes are quite traditional and always begin with homework gathering, taking attendance, assignment or investigation work and the introduction to the new content. I work through examples, several relevant tasks, and then we start the second handout. I often show a short piece of media content and then we do a study claim or a play-learn-interact-exercise at the end.

After a half-hour lunch, I spend my afternoon shaping my future lessons, preparing handouts, assignments, checking classwork, tests, homework and uploading students’ grades to the portal.

Once I’ve made sure that the students leave schools and get onto the buses safely, I have meetings with the principal, colleagues in the maths departments or parents.

Most of the time, I leave school by 4pm or 5pm and use the half-hour ride home to clear my mind.

I feel really supported in America. The system is encouraging and provides clear policies and regulations that require capacity, ability and self-resilience. Training, collaborative work and school policies adjust my insight to flourish in my work and approach the next level of achievement as a teacher.

Despite the fact that I’m a teacher with 28 years of experience, I learn and grow day by day in this very professional environment.

Suzy Manuela Prajea is a maths teacher at Monroe High School, Union County Public Schools, North Carolina

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