Student teaching is going well. This is the first week where I’m the teacher in charge. Up until now, my mentor teacher has been mostly in charge, with a slow and gradual shift in responsibility. Now she has relinquished control to me, while she spends time observing, taking care of administrative matters, or, I don’t know, perhaps wandering around the school looking for buried treasure. (That’s what I would do, at least).
I guess that’s why I haven’t written much lately, or been able to do much of anything after school. There’s a lot to worry about, a lot to think about. It’s been really rewarding so far. You can’t really get a handle on classroom management, and what you do well, and what you do that can lead to chaos, until you’re the last and only line of defense against anarchy.
Constant assessment, I find, is the real key to running a successful classroom. It’s also incredibly exhausting. How did this work, why isn’t it working? What could I do differently? What should I be doing differently now? The kids don’t understand this, how can I say it in a different way? I just explained the directions five times, how come half the class has no idea what is going on, what went wrong with the communication on MY end…? etc. All day long. It’s what good teachers do, and it’s easy to see how one might fall into a pattern of laziness by not doing that oh-so-crucial constant assessment.
My mentor teacher has been great. She’s supportive, but allows me to make mistakes. She’s there for me if I need her, but mostly lets me sort out my own messes, which is a big part of the learning process for me. I did one lesson that made a few kids cry with frustration. I learned a lot about making sure my students understand assignments, and the importance of really thorough modeling before asking them to work on their own.
I imagine my mentor teacher giving up control in a place that is fundamentally HERS, with HER rules and HER patterns and etc. What a scary thing! I have a lot of respect for someone who is able to do that, while at the same time allowing this OTHER PERSON to come in and change the rules here and there, as well as guiding them, giving them advice. It’s a crazy role, but I’m happy with how things are.
So that’s where I’ve been/what I’ve been up to. Learning. Doing. Teaching.
