THE CLASSROOM AIDE.

TO RELIEVE THE NON-INSTRUCTIONAL BURDEN UPON THE CLASSROOM TEACHER, THE QUEMADO PUBLIC SCHOOLS EXPERIMENTED WITH A TEACHER AIDE PROGRAM, UTILIZING A SINGLE TEACHER AIDE IN ELEMENTARY LANGUAGE ARTS AND HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAMED MATHEMATICS THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PROJECT. AS A RESULT OF THE EXPERIMENT'S SUCCESS, THE FOLLOWING SCHOOL YEAR (1963-1964) CLASSROOM AIDES WERE EMPLOYED IN EACH OF THE 4 QUEMADO PUBLIC SCHOOLS COVERING ALL SUBJECT MATTER AREAS. AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE INCREASED NUMBER OF CLASSROOM AIDES EMPLOYED, IT BECAME NECESSARY TO DEFINE A CLASSROOM AIDE, AND OUTLINE AN AIDE'S QUALIFICATIONS AND DUTIES. USE OF THE CLASSROOM AIDE ALLOWED THE TEACHER MORE TIME FOR INDIVIDUALIZING INSTRUCTION, DEVELOPING TEACHING MATERIALS, AND TRIAL-TESTING CLASSROOM EXPERIMENTS AND DEMONSTRATIONS PRIOR TO THEIR USE. TIME FOR SMALL GROUP INSTRUCTION BECAME MORE OF A REALITY BECAUSE THE TEACHER WAS FREED FROM SUCH NON-INSTRUCTIONAL DUTIES AS COLLECTING MONEY, TAKING ATTENDANCE, AND MARKING OBJECTIVE TYPE TESTS AND WORKBOOKS. IT WAS SUGGESTED THAT A PROGRAM OF TEACHER AIDE PREPARATION BE UNDERTAKEN EITHER BY LOCAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS, OR BY COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES. (DA)