At our Pre-Internship Seminar I remember Dr. Foster saying these words, "Just get through to week seven." Well, at the end of week seven, I can honestly say that this past week was the first week that I actually thought to myself, "I may be actually able to do this." Maybe the university supervisors actually know what they are talking about.
This is also approximately the halfway point of the student teaching experience and a good time to reflect back on how far I have come and what I need to do to get to where I want to be as an educator.
First off, I'd like to talk about areas in which I believe that I have grown. I remember being a single college student and thinking to myself, "I have so much to do and not enough time." Now, I am wondering what the heck I was doing back then that was taking up so much time. I really think that it may that our culture has conditioned us to think that we are always too busy to get everything done. I believe that in reality, as we take on more responsibility and more of our time and energy is required to complete certain tasks, that we have to learn to manage our time effectively, recognize priorities, and focus on what is important. I believe that I have gained valuable skills in being able to manage my time effectively to be able to complete that which is required of me and that this will help me in my future endeavors.
Now, looking forward, I recognize that the area in which I need to improve is in classroom management. I have been battling with how to approach classroom management since before I started student teaching and I am torn. I don't want to be an authoritarian figure in the classroom that demands compliance and conformity from my students because I don't believe that that is how I will gain that rapport with my students and be able to empower them. That being said, I also recognize that sometimes students, especially eighth graders at the end of the day, need structure or they will, for some reason, turn into a group of lawless dissidents. Finding a balance is key and then adapting pedagogy to the circumstances is the challenge.
I use a lot of purposeful questioning to encourage the students to think critically and engage with me in the lesson. I believe that with all of my classes, with the exception of the eighth grade students, it has been effective. With the eighth graders however, it is just an opportunity for the students to blurt out the first thing that comes to their minds and then continue to chat with their peers about something tangential and very distracting.
Therefore, in the coming weeks, I will start to experiment with adjusting my pedagogy to meet the nuances of each of my classes to ensure that my interactions with my students are both empowering and conducive to task-oriented behavior.
Closing thoughts. I am not going to lie, student teaching has been tough and at certain times I questioned if teaching was right for me. But looking back I can see that I have come a long way in a short period of time and that is exciting to me. I am looking forward to being able to reflect back at the end of this experience and see how far I will have come.
