In coming into an alternative licensure program in which newbies to the field of education are thrust upon the teaching stage with little to no experience and then evaluated on every aspect of their performance, it should be pretty obvious that you are going to suck. Maybe not all the time - you may have some really good days and you might totally kill it during a particular lesson. And maybe not in all the same ways - your improvement will go up and down and cross itself back again on more than one occasion. But the hope in MTC is that there will be a steady progression towards becoming a better teacher, for as Dr. Monroe likes to say, being successful at school means continually growing as individuals.
Across most of my evaluations so far, the biggest thing that I need to work on right now coming into the program as a teacher with a little untrained prior experience, is my teaching personality. On the very first lesson I taught, my TEAM teacher said that many of the teaching basics are down in my case, which is very nice not to have to deal with. And then I was given an informal choice - when I am up there as the teacher in the room, I either need to be more authoritative or more fun. Currently I say good things and do more or less what a teacher should do, but I exist simply as an empty vessel for conveying information. I need to show more of my personality, or at least a uniform teaching personality, that can get the students more engaged and interested in being there for class.
So far I can tell that working on my teaching personality includes the following:
- Being engaging. Teaching should be a give and take with student participation, especially during sets, as they serve the purpose of getting students involved in the lesson and making the information relevant to their lives. This also includes making conversations with students while on duty posts (outside the school in the mornings for me). Some of my sets have been alright or even good, but I need to work on ways of working in more questions so that the students are running the set for me.
- Being enthusiastic: I don’t want to go the authoritative route because I feel it so clashes with my inner personality that I would become too much of a negative person for my liking (this is not the same thing as being strict in the beginning of the year, though). So I’ve decided to go more the FUN route. This means being (at times overly) excited about the class, period, material in order to get students excited about being here. The first comment that my TEAM teacher made about my true teaching personality coming out, is when I made a short impromptu infomercial-like comment of which brand of jelly I use to make my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (blackberry jelly). The fun, quirky, and awkward moment aligns with my genuine self, I guess.
- Being LOUD: This does not necessarily mean all the time because I have been told that I can command the classroom with a quieter tone (a folksy, melodic tone, some might say). But it does mean pulling out loud bursts of energy occasionally throughout the lesson to keep students on their toes and engaged, and it also means being able to issue consequences with a decisive and strong tone, as to not appear meek. This has come up in my role plays again and again, as well - saying the right things but people not really believing them because there was no force behind the consequences.
I liked what my TEAM teacher said about this teaching personality thread already appearing in various forms on many of my evals: by the end of the summer, this is going to have changed into one of my strengths. That’s the goal, at least.
Summer school has thus far adequately met my expectations. Now, before I get into whether or not those were high expectations or low expectations, there are a few things that must be addressed in order to have some context around my situation (for any who aren’t already aware).
I moved down to Mississippi a year ago when my partner became a first year going through the program. For the first six or so months, I pretty much sat at home watching a lot of Netflix. I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t know my way around. We only had one car and my partner wasn’t always able to carpool to work. I was lazy...There were a lot of reasons...err...excuses.
Then a situation sort of fell into my lap, and it was really hard to ignore it. There was a teacher retiring mid-school year in the subject area I am familiar with, and the district was pretty cool with hiring a person with little to no (accent on the NO) prior teacher training. When the new year came in, I started as a long-term substitute teacher in charge of three sections of Physical Science and three sections of Introduction to Biology at the good ol’ North Panola High School, one of the nearby school districts*. It is hard for me to take any credit for making it through those first six months of teaching because I had A LOT of help. I was able to follow around some of the best teachers MTC has lately produced, I had a personal helper at all times because he lived with me and found it hard to say no to helping, I had a very supportive and encouraging administration and staff that cut me some slack where I needed it, came down hard on things that would make me better anyway, and were present in the classrooms, halls, meetings to guide me through a myriad of situations. I don’t think I came out a success, but overall, I was not a complete failure. I am sure glad I did it, but I would not like to go through the long-term sub without any prior training at a high-needs school in rural Mississippi gig again**.
So now starting the program and starting summer school...
It is great to be here. There is so much for me to learn, both in how to become a better educator but also how to become better in general. I am going to just go ahead and just list some of my observations thus far:
- The kids are about what I expected. Actually better behaved than expected. I was assuming the worst of the worst, but I found that these students are motivated to stay on track or get ahead, or at the least have parents that are motivated to provide their children with opportunities to help them succeed. And I really like our kids. I’ve gotten to know them a bit faster than I did the first time around at NPHS. It helps not being the only teacher in the room for that.
- The TEAM teachers really know their stuff. Watching them is like watching water pour out of a faucet. Seemingly one of the most normal and uninteresting things in the world - until you slow down your gaze and take a moment to watch the way light reflects off the bouncing water droplets as they cascade down into the sink below...Cheesy? Yup, that’s what I’m going for.But seriously: when watching a good teacher teach, it can be hard at first to spot interesting things. Because they just do what you think should be done. It seems normal, logical, and predictable. Light bulbs flicker on when they should, lines line up without hassle, and the world seems in order. But then you start to notice the perfect degree of feigned ignorance, and the way all their directions make complete sense. You start to notice the specific kinds of questioning strategies they use to make the students to the work and do it right. You notice the general sense of fairness about the room, both when listening to praise and when listening to someone get in trouble. Summer school has been great for seeing these great talents in action, and there is a lot I can learn from them.
- The above point was probably too long for a bullet.
- MTC teachers are very diverse and everyone has wonderfully different things to bring to the program and to teaching in Mississippi. But we also have some common thread connecting us all to education. It’s nice to have a solid base in common with so many people.
- It can still be hard to understand the kids, but I’m getting better at feeling confident to ask them to repeat again (and again). I am getting better at names and faces, too.
- One thing I definitely do not enjoy is having to work every day without fail after the normal work day has ended. So. Much. To. Do. Summer school is easier than a regular school year, but I still wish I was on vacation.
- I thought it would be hard for me to be engaging with students who I did not know at all, and it was. It is so much easier to engage, praise, issue consequences, and react to situations when the students are familiar to you.
- I am rooting for all my fellow first years. Now that the second years are gone, I hope we can keep the ship sailing.
Overall, I basically knew what I was in for. There are some changes, especially with the fluidity of the program itself at the moment, but mostly the experience has gone in the same stages that I was planning. I work and am tired, but not as much as a full time teacher. I still have a lot to learn, both in lesson planning and in being in front of the classroom. Now that the second years are leaving, things are going to be just a little bit more lonely. All in all, it’s good to be here.
*Also where most of the nearby MTCer’s and where all of our newfound friends worked.
**And I suppose I should say that I am really thankful for being encouraged to even do it in the first place. I was on the phone with my mom the night before ready to not go in the next day.
