Student teaching

Tweet

Since I've been missing in action lately. My time was consumed with student teaching and I almost fell into a depression because I was highly stressed. I had a horrible student teaching experience. From jump I got weird vibes. I meet my cooperating teacher, CT, in November for an "interview". So, I call the school and never really get in touch with anyone. This goes on for about two weeks. So, I finally get a secretary who helps me sort through this mess. The school doesn't want to interview, CT does. For what reason, I don't know because the secretary tells me this is not usual policy for the school and that's probably why I got the run around for two weeks when I called. So, I get in touch with CT through emails and we decide to have the interview in December. She wants to meet up in this dinner. It's like in the middle of nowhere. I didn't know how to get there and took a cab. I didn't want to make waves and just went. She seemed friendly at first, but after having lunch I discovered she hates kids and is basically waiting to retire. I think ok. She swears to me, she has no idea why my college required an interview. Once again, I bite my tongue and go with it. I started student teach in the last week of January. The first day there, I knew this location wasn't for me. I should have listened to my heart and asked to be given another placement. I was stubborn and decided to stick it out. Despite feeling stressed and having a migraine. I was also bored from just observing. I heard the students being yelled at. CT asked an eight year old girl "why she even bothered going to school that day". I wanted to say something, but I didn't. The only thing I did that day was punch holes to hang up the students' project that would stay on a bulletin board for three months. At the end of the first week, I was allowed to work with a small group during reading. I excelled at this because of my experience with small groups and my major in, and love of, English. Looking back, though, I noticed she just threw me into things and never modeled anything for me. I think maybe she didn't know the right way to do it. Perhaps, time was making her lose what she once had. Towards the end of my student teaching, I over heard her talking to another teacher, and she said she once a teacher in a Catholic school and the ways of the Catholic school never left her. I believe she embodied all of the negative qualities of private schooling. There were a few other student teachers at the school I was placed at. In the beginning, they had a lot less responsibilities than I did and things weren't pushed on them as fast. For example, I had to do lesson plans when I got to take over math. None of the student teachers had to do lesson plans or hand them in. CT claimed to want to them, but never checked them or asked for them. I stopped doing them. This was a class were things happened at the drop of a hat. I felt the lesson plans didn't offer anything. When my supervisor came, she complained I didn't give her lesson plans. However, she never even checked the ones I did do. After a while of doing math and small group reading, I got to take over large group reading. She never really modeled it properly and I wasn't good at it at first. Her advice was vague and I often didn't take it. I was having a hard time getting through to the students because all they had ever known was yelling and being berated. On line, they talked and misbehaved. I noticed teacher looking at me in the halls. They looked at me in a condescending manner. They would tell their students not to be bad like my class. I often looked down and wished I would fall down the stairs. Be away from their stairs and have a reason, medically, to leave. Not just quit. One day, she looked at me in the eyes and said "I have eyes and ears all around the school. Remember that." She pretended it was for the students, but I knew it was for me. I was young and creative, she was old and cold. We would have never gotten along, but other factors helped widen the natural drift. Her former student teacher, her pet who gladly licked her shoes, was always intruding. Overstepping their boundary. CT once asked their former student teacher to give me advice. The advice was vague and I tried to take as much value from it as I could, but it seemed the former student had discontent for me. The day I was given the advice it snowed. Most of the students had been picked up. It continued to snow, the next day we would have a snow day. I remember sitting on the giant carpet and playing games with four students while the former student teacher sat and played games with the other four students. Looking back, it stands out how CT didn't play. Just told them to keep quiet as she used the computer. No one gave me a ride how. I had to wait in the pounding snow for the bus. I wonder if I'm overreacting for having bruised feelings about that. It's funny, though, weeks before that, so many people said they would give me a ride home if I ever needed it. I went on my first field trip as a teacher. She left me alone with twenty two students. I had to worry about them crossing big streets and not getting lost in a big park. She would just wonder off and not tell me. At that moment, with two months left to go, I knew she had no respect for me. I informed a supervisor from my university and she told me I couldn't use the school computers any more for emails. She had checked my emails, because the systems had saved my login information. I nodded, but I kept a log of all the things she did, or didn't do, to tell my supervisor. Many other things happened, but two things stick out. Once, she pulled me into the teacher's lounge and questioned if my heart was in it. Claiming I wasn't giving a hundred percent. I just sat there quietly. Knowing she wanted a fight, wanted a reason to get me out. I wouldn't give it to her. Mind games got worse. At a meeting the student teachers had to attend with the regular teachers, she loudly told another teacher she couldn't stand me and was going to eat her lunch during her prep to avoid me. That she was going to lock up all the doors in the class so I couldn't touch her things. Once, I used a pen on her desk and she accused me of stealing it. She was lazy and my time to leave would be right before the big test. She tried to my supervisor extend my leave. She never said by how much. According to my university's policy it was a possibility if CT and supervisor found me to be incompetent. My supervisor knew what was going in and saw I was competent and dedicated. The day before my supervisor was to evaluate me and make their decision, she loudly told a colleague she wouldn't extend my stay because she simply couldn't stand me. I looked at the bright side and never confronted her. The second thing that sticks out, is a student threw a book at me and she never reprimanded them. I saw her see it. I later told another teacher about it in her presence and I was told I should have, or CT should have, written that student up. CT claimed to have not seen the incident. I knew where I stood and just let it go. I wouldn't let her keep me from my goal of being a teacher. I think she wanted to humiliate me. She would make me run errands for her. Like get her coffee from the basement. I did it with a smile. I knew showing my misery would only make her happy. On my last day I felt euphoric. I'm sorry this is so long, but I needed to vent.