Informal Control
This week was one of learning and roller coasters. It was also one that showed me that all of the jobs I’ve done in my life have been completely mindless. While there is an art and skill to being a hostess, one that I only understand now after 2 years, teaching is the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken. There is always an immense learning curve to be had when starting something new. Even if it seems simple to begin with, like riding a bike or learning how to knit.
Skills like learning how to read kids, getting them to become inquisitive learners, asking the correct and well placed question and being in control of a classroom with a minimum of laid out rules is something that cannot be taught in a classroom. My teacher prep program is hypocritical and unable to prepare students to become student teachers, let alone actual teachers. Creating student centered activities that are not disguised as something that is actually low order thinking has been the most challenging monument to overcome. I’ve realized that continuing to become angry about this is wasteful energy. Que Sera. Without my cooperating teacher I’d be lost. My informal control of my classroom, as my student teaching supervisor put it, is where I am at now and I can only hope it continues to get easier. I know there will be peaks, valleys, and tears of joy and frustration. But if I plan to grow over time, even continuing once I become a teacher legitimately, it is something that I will have to grow to embrace. I am not perfect, I will never be perfect. But neither is my cooperating teacher. Seeing him teach a lesson that is failing, shows me that even people doing it for years can still have a bad day and that I am not alone.
Step one was learning my area’s where I needed work, and now I’m moving on to step two which is acknowledging these areas and working at them, which has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. One thing that I have to remember, is that I’m not going through all of this alone. My supervisor, my cooperating teacher, and my students are there for me, and I have to be there for them as well. My students are going through the same peaks, valleys and tears that I am. We will learn together.
