Dear Teachers,
Researchers at the University of Oregon invite you to participate in a study about teachers and needy students. We realize that teachers often see children more hours each day than any other adult in their lives. We would appreciate your help to further understand the multiple roles that you play in this capacity.
The focus of this study is to learn about teachers’ experiences with needy, challenging and difficult children. We are especially interested in learning about the students who are in most need of guidance and/or intervention. We would like to learn how you respond to needy students and about the resources and support the school system provides to help them. We also ask about your personal beliefs about intervention, your level of training, and perceived level of preparedness to deal with challenges in today’s classroom.
If you are interested in learning more about this study, please visit our website at:
http://dynamic.uoregon.edu/tws/
Your participation is completely voluntary and confidential. We guarantee your confidentiality unless you tell us your name. We prefer that you do not use your full name when creating a “username” for the survey.
Thanks for your interest,
Sincerely,
Lisa DeMarni Cromer, M.S.
Christina Gamache
Jennifer Freyd, Ph.D.
Agreement
Exactly! We completely agree, which is why we are pursuing this line of
research. Our expectation is that teachers often have to play the role of
the unfunded and unsupported social worker. We think schools need to have more resources so that teachers can focus on teaching. Our hope is that disseminating this research can encourage schools and hopefully provide the data to support them when they appeal for more resources. We completely agree that teachers should be able to focus on teaching effectively and that other resources need to be available for the social work part. We hope to give you a voice by doing this research.
Let us know if you have any more questions. We hope you will consider
filling out the survey.
Best,
Christina Gamache
I only wish some of this time, effort, and money went to finding out about teachers *teaching* effectively, not acting as partially trained, unfunded, and unsupported social workers.