During her planning time Thursday morning, Tri-County Special Education Teacher Caitlin Barcus handed a young man a stack of papers to grade then sat down at her desk in her classroom on the second floor of Parsons High School.
The room, coincidentally, is located directly above the first-floor classroom her grandfather, the late Don Barcus, taught in for years. Just down from her grandfather’s old classroom area is the principal’s office occupied by her father Rob Barcus. The two men have a combined 73 years of experience teaching and coaching. Add in the nearly 30 years her stepmom Kendra Barcus has dedicated to serving as an educator, and Caitlyn’s almost two years, and this third-generation family of educators has given more than 100 years to teaching and coaching students. Most of those years have been right here in Parsons.
Besides family, a couple of other teachers had a reinforcing influence on Caitlin ‘s childhood thoughts of growing up to teach. Tiffany Hicks had a tremendous impact on her. Caitlin attended St. Patrick Catholic School until she began to lose her vision. The school could not support her like public schools could, so in second grade she transferred into public school for the first time and Tiffany Hicks was her teacher.
“I just remember feeling like I had never learned like that before, like having a teacher that cared so much about me and wanted everyone to learn,” Caitlin said. “Especially with me just starting to lose my vision, it happened slowly over time, so it was like she would just always be there for me. … I remember her just like being that shining light. She was that teacher and I just remember she probably had the biggest impact.”
Then Caitlin had Hope Smith in fourth grade.
“I loved Mrs. Smith. She was the first teacher that I felt like she was a cool one. She was cool, really laid back. Everyone else was nice and everything, but she was the first one that was laid back and could just connect with us as little people and not like as just students,” she said.
Thinking back, Caitlin doesn’t recall a time not thinking she would go into teaching as a career.
“The only thing that differed is what I was going to teach,” she said.
Her initial thoughts towards teaching were general at first. When she finally started gravitating toward a specific grade level, her first consideration was kindergarten.
“I remember being in high school and we used to have classes here where if you were interested in education, you could take them and learn more about teaching and what it would take to be a teacher. I took those classes, and they offered practicum where you could go and observe. I observed a first-grade class and a kindergarten class and knew within a week that was no longer something I wanted to teach. By my junior year of high school I knew, this is not going to be for me.”
Education was something she still definitely wanted to pursue, so when she went to college at Missouri Southern State University, she observed middle school. Again, she knew that was not the age group she was meant to educate.
“Then I observed high school. Even observing you can picture yourself and answer, ‘Would I fit in in this environment and this setting?’ Personality-wise too, I think it takes special people to teach every grade, but you know maybe little kids aren’t your vibe all the time, so maybe teach older kids," she said. "That is why I teach older kids. With my anxiety and not having vision, I know if I’m in here and they see me no one is going to throw something or hit each other, but in a kindergarten classroom they’d be doing all kinds of things."
After graduating, mid-year Caitlin began subbing for Steve Fienen, who taught wood shop and resource history, but was stepping away from teaching for a while and then would retire. She fell in love with it.
Nearing the end of her second year of teaching, Caitlin is positive she chose the right profession. She is in the master’s program for Special Education at Pittsburg State University.
“I plan to stay for a long time in this particular job, too, working for Tri-County and just staying a Special Ed teacher. I have my history degree, just for teaching history 9th-12th, so I could apply for the Gen Ed history jobs that are open here, but I really like what I do right now,” Caitlin said. “I still get to teach history and I also teach English. It’s like the kids that I have, I can just connect with them more because I have a disability and Gen Ed kids sometimes just get uncomfortable by it or they don’t know how to interact with me. The kids I have in class, they are not fazed by it. They might ask a couple of questions, but they always act like I’m the adult. I really like that about the kids that I teach.”
This second year, she has gotten her footing more.
“I would say I feel more confident in my role and just more confident in teaching with them. I’m not as scared or anxious about it,” she said. “I feel like I have it a little more under control, especially my classroom management has gotten significantly better comparatively. Year one I was a bit too nice. This year, I know how to be nice, but still hold people accountable. I think that’s been kind of hard for me, just personally, just to kind of get tough. Now I’ve gotten better at it where it’s not like I’m trying to be mean or something.”
What she would tell students today thinking of going into education is to observe all the grades before choosing a particular grade level to teach. Getting that firsthand experience in a classroom is vital to understanding where one’s comfort zone is in teaching.
“You can see, even if you are only there for an hour or two, how those kids are acting, the maturity levels, and what they do in those hours, what kind of the schedule and stuff,” she said. “I think that’s very important.”