This Is The Teacher That Fell Off The Desk

Author: offthedesk

  • Adjusting to Unexpected Student Teaching Placements: Part One

    My two years of grad school were flying by soon the time came that every soon-to-be teacher waited for: the student teaching placement.

    Throughout my courses and field work, I made it known to my professors that I wanted to teach upper elementary school. My certification in the state I attended school would allow me to teach up to 4th grade. So, when I received my placement in a 2nd grade classroom I was disappointed. I watched my colleagues react with excitement to their placements (most getting the grade level and or school of their choice, while I had to come to terms with the fact I would be spending the next 4 months teaching a grade level I didn’t feel as comfortable or excited about.

    I was fortunate enough to be placed at a school that I was familiar with. I had done a significant amount of field work at this school and knew most of the teachers and admin. I spent the months leading up to student teaching by researching the standards, curriculum, and expanding my wardrobe for 5 days in the classroom. What I wasn’t prepared for was the completely different teaching styles and attitude of my supervising teacher.

    I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m an extremely type A person that goes above and beyond what it is required of me. It stems from a place of not wanting to let anyone down or find myself getting into trouble. (It’s something I’m still working on today.) Throughout my courses, the professors emphasized the enormous responsibility of teaching 20+ children a day. Not only were we caring for their academic needs, but their social and emotional needs as well as their physical safety. It was somewhat shocking to see how my supervising teacher (ST for short) was taking these responsibilities so casually. My own anxiety began to creep up and I started to question if I was taking everything too seriously and needed to be more like her.

    Stay tuned for part two.

  • The Divide Among Teachers

    Once I settled into the course work of my M.Ed, I began to really focus on doing my absolute best. I think the direct pipeline from high school, to undergrad, to grad school helped me stay focused and have the stamina to handle 6 hours straight of classes per night. However, it was a difficult to get used to some professors treating us like elementary students. I remember some of them having us “teach ” in front of the class and the professor encouraging the “students” to act out. To me, it felt like such a waste of time and did nothing to prepare anyone for actually being in the classroom.

    Another thing that really stood out to me, was the lack of friendliness among the cohort. While, I certainly did make friends along the way that I’m still in touch with, I was surprised how negative some of my fellow classmates were. For example, for every lesson we created, we had to incorporate some form of technology into it. Myself and and the majority of the class had no issues doing this. However, some of the veteran teachers really dug their heels in and refused to do this. They would balk that this was the lazy way out and not “real teaching.” When the professors told them it was a requirement, they would be befuddled how it took the majority of us significantly less time to complete the lesson requirements while they spent hours trying to incorporate some element of tech. Once, I was paired up with one of the anti-tech teachers for a project. I can still see the look of contempt on her face being paired up the ” lazy, wanting to use tech to do my job” teacher. Something that the anti-tech group failed to see was how the majority of students would be using some form of tech in their jobs . It was literally a life skill.

    As the night’s project progressed, she refused to listen to my ideas, belittled most of what I said and made me feel less than her because I wasn’t teaching for the last 30 years.

    This was my first taste of how unkind teaching can be & certainly wouldn’t be the last.

  • Navigating Career Changes: My Path from MBA to M.Ed

    When I graduated college, the US still had not fully recovered from the recession. I was fresh out of school with a B.A., determined that I was going to have a glamorous career in advertising with an office on Madison Ave. But, the shops on Madison Ave. or any advertising firm for that matter, wanted to reduce their budgets. They did not want to hire graduates fresh out of school who had little to no experience.

    So, I decided it was best to stay in school for a few more years, earn another degree and let the economy recover. Halfway through my MBA, I found myself very bored and the advertising industry was beginning to lose its luster. I started to question other career paths, and thought back to my childhood dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up.

    I came to the decision that I wanted to be a teacher. Overall, I loved the structure and routine of the school day and I had a few good teachers along the way. So, I withdrew from the MBA program and enrolled at another university’s M.Ed program.

    The months leading up to starting my M.Ed I was so excited. I moved to a new city, got a new apartment and finally felt like I found my path. However, that excitement was short lived. I remember my first day of class left me having a panic attack in my car. My cohort was a mix of young 20 somethings like myself and veteran teachers on the brink of retirement: who decided to have their school districts pay for one more degree for them before they retired.

    The first thing the professor did, was have us introduce ourselves and talk about why we wanted to become a teacher. “After all, this is a calling”, they said. I could feel the knots in my stomach start to form. A calling I thought? This wasn’t a religious vocation, it was a career. I listened as my colleagues told stories of how they had teachers inspire and guide them, some even began to tear up as they described the impact these teachers had on their lives. I started to get very anxious about what I was going to say. Overall, my school experience was good but I did not have some break through or life changing moment with the help of a teacher. I begin to think “Why am I here?” “Why am I doing this?”. When it was finally my turn, I mumbled some lame response of wanting to help kids succeed and I was grateful for some of my elementary and high school teachers.

    That night, I felt like such a fraud. I was going into this profession because it sounded like a good career option with job stability, a pension, and good health insurance. I looked at it from a very practical angle. I didn’t see myself as someone worthy of having a positive impact on a child’s life, nor did I hold a former teacher in higher regard than my parents, like most of my cohort.

    After that first day, I knew it was going to be a challenging two years.