The Last Day

My student teaching placement has officially ended. Don’t get me wrong. There’s still write ups I need to do and a portfolio to fill with artifacts, but my time at school with an amazing supervising teacher and the best students is over.

The beginning of my last day started at 6:30 AM. I arrived at the home of a retired teacher who had prepared a breakfast feast for the school community. Needless to say, I filled myself with delicious home fries, quiche, blueberry stuffed french toast, and donuts. While there, I mingled with a few of my colleagues and some of the students who had been brought by their parents. By 7:30, I was on my way back the other direction because I planned to pick up a Mexican rosy boa to bring to school. Today was designated as a Read-A-Thon, which consists of half hour blocks of reading and half hour activities in between. All day. Does that sound perfect or what? For my activities, I planned to have students craft pinata ornaments and to introduce them to the exciting world of reptiles.

The students loved the snake, even those who claimed to have a fear of them. We were able to hold her, and I shared fun facts with them all. The ornament craft went over well, too. I assisted my mentor teacher with her activity involving baking chocolate chip cookies, and it was the best thing to see boys bake for the first time. By the end of the day, I had eaten even more food, including sweets brought by the students and a variety of dishes for a teacher potluck. Throughout the day, I also received an abundance of gifts. Girls from the 6th grade class gave me a Christmas cactus, homemade ornament, and a jar of hot cocoa mix plus added treats. I also got a few candy grams. (I think the students purposefully exaggerated the amount they told me I would receive yesterday and I just didn’t catch on. No worries!)

When the end of the day arrived, various students hugged me, begging me not to leave. I was the center of a group hug and gave high fives to the boys who were obviously too cool to join in. And of course, I had to shed a few tears. My time with them all is over, but I would love to have any opportunity to return some day. I wish them all the very best time as they finish this year and move onto the next. They all certainly deserve it.

Tears of Joy

I cried today. They were not tears of sadness, but I felt embarrassed anyway. I had thought I would be able to maintain my composure until I was alone, but it didn’t happen that way. Instead, I let them fall as my mentor teacher wrapped me in a hug. Today was an emotional day but in all the best ways.

At the end of each of my last classes, I had students fill out an evaluation of me and then gave them each a treat bag, as mentioned in my previous post. I was extremely proud of the reactions to the personal notes. The sixth grade students were all excited. The eighth grade boys who had given me trouble suddenly adopted a new attitude. The seventh graders read theirs aloud and pretended to act like it wasn’t as meaningful as it really was. Sometimes, students just need to be told that they are appreciated, that the individuals that they are represent more than just a robot who follows a schedule each and every day. Later in the day, I read cards signed by my students, each signing in their own unique way. That didn’t push me over the edge, though.

As I prepared to head to dinner with my supervisor before the school holiday concert, I decided to open the gift my mentor teacher had given me. What I found was a card holding cash for my trip home and a scarf she bought from the high school craft fair. I couldn’t hold it all in anymore. I let the tears fall.

The amazing time I have spent as a student teacher cannot be fully expressed in words, but I will try my best. In the beginning, I was terrified. I didn’t think I was doing the right thing, and I worried about having to make my way through 15 weeks. Now, though, I couldn’t feel anymore like I am in the right place. The students I have gotten to work with are inspiring and intelligent, both traits they may not recognize in themselves just yet. My mentor teacher is a successful woman, the best at what she does, and she cares deeply for those close to her. It’s an understatement to say that I will miss them all. After waking up every morning, prepared for what the day will bring in the classroom, I won’t be used to starting a new routine. I won’t get to see the familiar faces every morning that smile and make me laugh with just a word. I won’t get to watch as they mess up the skeleton yet again or make a breakthrough with the Codea app. Over these past few months, they have all become a part of my family, and I don’t know what I will do without them. I fully intend to keep in touch, checking up on how they are every now and then. I don’t know yet whether I’ll return to the area any time soon, but it warms my heart to hear them beg me to stay. It’s impossible to guess how much of an impact a teacher can have on the lives of his or her students and how that can be equally reciprocated unless you experience it yourself. If and when I eventually end up working with another group of students, I won’t forget these, but I will be happy to try, yet again, to help shape lives of the younger generation. It’s what I love to do.

Christmas Time

By now, my students are all aware that I won’t be returning after Christmas break. Surprisingly, they have all expressed some degree of sadness, asking me why I have to go and if I can just work there and stay. I only say it’s surprising because some students that I wasn’t sure actually wanted me there have become depressed when they know this Friday is my last day. Is it bad that I feel happy about it all, though?

As a gift, I am preparing treat bags for each of my 36 students, plus my mentor teacher. I’ve included a pencil in each one and a small piece of chocolate. Hopefully, they won’t have a problem with the kind or will appreciate the sentiment if they do. For my mentor teacher, I’ve also included a cute pail. I am also planning to write a short but sweet personal note for each student. Throughout my time as their teacher, I didn’t get to know them all as well as I would have liked. However, I want to express how much joy I had teaching them, so a note may get that across. The fact that I will be finished soon saddens me, but I want to go out in the best way possible: with the students wishing I wouldn’t go.

The Deciding Factor

Yesterday afternoon, as I sat in the eerily quiet testing center, I felt confident. The amount of questions I answered using the knowledge I have gained, rather than the hope that my guess will be correct, increased. As the screen popped up to reveal how well I did, I was positive that I would at least meet the qualifying score this time around. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I fell 9 points short of the score required in the state I am receiving certification in. I was only 5 points short for the state where I live. No matter how close I got, though, if I haven’t met the expectations, it means nothing.

I understand and completely agree with testing the content knowledge of an aspiring teacher. Someone who wants to teach science should be able to interpret a food web or name the organelles involved in photosynthesis. However, I do not agree with a standardized test serving as the deciding factor. Over the past 14 weeks, I have grown to love teaching. When I’m in the classroom, explaining to students what lab they will get to conduct, I feel like I’m right where I should be. But it could all be taken away if I fail to prove that I know enough about my subject area to teach it.

Perhaps I’m being too harsh. Standardized tests are the deciding factor for a lot of different pathways, whether it’s to become a certified teacher or be able to apply to certain graduate schools. They are the norm, and plenty of other people have taken them and succeeded. Are those good enough reasons to keep the system as it is, though? How many people have their desires unfulfilled because the memorization of facts isn’t their forte? How many have gone on to become certified to teach because they can pass off as experts in content knowledge but know very little about classroom management? It is an imperfect system, and I believe we have become blind to the problems it has. Many would ask: Why fix what isn’t broken? But it is. It is broken.

I wish I could go straight to the Department of Education and explain my concerns to them and feel like they are actually listening. I wish I could become certified based more on my abilities in the classroom rather than on a test score. But the world doesn’t seem to work that way. As much as I would like to give up, tell myself that me not passing must be a sign that I shouldn’t be certified, I won’t. I’ll spend more time studying, attempting to cram as much information in my head as I can, information that I may never use during my career as a teacher but must know in order to appease those in higher power. I’ll pay the fee yet again, or I may try to apply for a waiver. Should I fall short the third time around, I can’t guarantee I will continue to try. But I will try my hardest to succeed in what matters to me. And I hope that others who fall between the cracks as I have will do the same.

Evaluation

As the days fly by and my last one spent with students I have come to care dearly for looms ever closer, I find myself fearing the evaluation that I must ask them to make of me. Today, I started filming lessons that will be shared with the committee tasked with reviewing my student teaching placement, and I began brainstorming ideas for what kinds of questions I want students to respond to when sharing thoughts for how I managed the classroom. The principal of the school offered me the evaluation form given to students for teachers in middle school and high school, and I only had to glance at the questions to realize that I may receive feedback that I’m not prepared for.

Just on the first page, students are asked whether a teacher treated them respectfully, even if misbehavior was present, and fairly. While I would like to say that I have done both of those as much as possible, I don’t know how to be sure. I have been aware of certain students not finding me pleasant since I started, and I have let that knowledge sit in a corner where it cannot distract me. But should I have taken more time to address it? Would it have made a difference? While those thoughts plague me, though, I am also reassured by expressions of excitement and happiness when I work with most of my students. A few of the 6th grade students today said that they would write a rap that would convince the committee that I am an awesome teacher, and I couldn’t help but smile. I can recall sifting through old student teacher portfolios and skimming student feedback forms. All I ever read were nice comments. Perhaps I have no reason to worry and should instead hope for honesty, whether it be positive or negative. If I receive back something that displeases me, maybe I could make an effort to remedy it, even after I have left. There are times when I wonder if I spend too much time being concerned with what others think, but this is one of those exceptions where I would rather know what someone thinks rather than be given sugar-coated lies. My time as a student teacher has been incredibly fulfilling, and I have learned just as much about myself as the students I have been able to work with. My hope is that whatever is recorded on the evaluation form is true and that I can find out even more about these kids by giving them the opportunity to have a voice.

It’s a Nerdy Thing

I was going to make a post about how absenteeism is extremely frustrating and difficult to work with as a teacher, a fact students may not entirely understand, but I’d rather share a conversation I had during the last class today with a 7th grade boy:

Boy: [mentions something about League of Legends]

Me: Oh, I know about that game.

Boy: [pause] You actually know about League of Legends?

Me:…Yeah. What do you mean “actually”?

Boy: Well, it’s a “nerdy” thing…

Me: [completely insulted and also fighting the urge to distinguish between ‘geek’ and ‘nerd’] You don’t think I’m nerdy?

Boy: I thought you would have been too busy with studying to play games.

At this point, I explain that I love playing video games, and the boy is joined by a few of his classmates in asking me what my favorite game is. I say that I play games like Left for Dead when I’m home and that the Legend of Zelda games are my favorite. A 6th grade boy not too far away looks up, smiles, and says that it’s so cool that I like those games. From this point on, I am overwhelmed with 3 to 4 boys scrambling to tell me their favorite games, sharing the surprise that I like the same kinds of things. When I tell them that I have a habit of throwing controllers when I get upset at a game, they start laughing and pointing at one of the boys that apparently does the exact same thing, although his habits sound a bit more extreme. I try my best to listen to them all speak at once, but I’m also fighting the urge to proclaim how happy I am that they feel like they can talk to me about personal interests. One of the boys says he knew teachers had lives outside of school but wasn’t sure what they would involve. When I share that my whole family likes playing games, they get jealous, admitting that they wish their parents could relate as well. This conversation is probably the best I have had since being at my student teaching placement.

It was an amazing experience to get to share information about myself and my life outside of school with my students. When I would start to talk, one would immediately try to hush the others, as if they were hanging on my every word. The only problem that came up was when they started comparing me to my mentor teacher, explaining that she wouldn’t be into games at all. Although I have no clue whether she is or not, I asked them to not say such things because teachers have all kinds of other interests and hobbies when not in school. Of course, they may not be as similar, but that is no reason to speak badly of them. Regardless, I enjoyed the exchange I had with the boys because I don’t always like being the strict, loud-speaking voice of authority. I also can’t expect them to respect me and listen when they don’t know me. One of the boys said he never would have guessed I liked video games, and I agreed. He had no reason to guess that I like playing console and computer games, but he knows now, and I’m sure he thinks it’s the best thing ever. I do wish there had been girls present in the conversation, but I find that the boys are harder to connect to, so I am thankful that I was able to have this experience.

Note to teachers: Share something with your students that they would never guess about you. It might make them like you just a little bit more.

Three Weeks

Yesterday evening, my sister texted me to say that she is hoping to join the National Guard. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I wasn’t upset, just curious. I asked her how she started thinking about that, and I found myself wanting, more than anything, to be able to hug her. She is graduating high school this year and has been accepted to her college of choice. While her 18th birthday is still a little over one month away, I can’t pretend she’s a little girl anymore. She has gotten her first jobs and will soon enough memorize her social security number from having to fill out numerous forms, if she hasn’t already. Her choice of major is Vet-Tech, and I have no doubt she will succeed in whatever she puts her mind to. All of this made me start to think yet again about my life after student teaching is over. My sister is growing up and moving into the next phase of her life and, soon, so will I.

In three weeks, I will be done working under my mentor teacher, and I will have to say farewell to the students I have come to enjoy seeing every day. My trip home will be long but, hopefully, uneventful. I will arrive, safe and sound, just in time for my 23rd birthday and Christmas. Following the holiday, I will begin working at Bath and Body Works, a job I have held on and off for the past year. What comes next will depend on me. I have the choice of staying home to work a retail job and sub, saving money and gaining experience. Or I could potentially take a job in a different location, one that I would have previously applied for and actually been offered. And then, there’s the third option. If I don’t hear back from any jobs I come across, and I just don’t wish to stay home long term, I could always pick a place and start fresh.

A friend of mine has mentioned a couple of times that, if neither of us has a job that we enjoy once we return home, we will pick a new place where we want to live and start from scratch. Is this a foolproof plan? Certainly not. But how does anyone get started doing anything? If I’m not happy at home, and I don’t have any job opportunities readily available, I could always save money for a time and make a plan to travel some place new. The idea terrifies me. But I can’t just sit and let life pass me by, hoping that something will turn up without me having to do a thing. If my sister wants to join the National Guard, she will work her hardest to make it possible. If I want to live in a new place and pursue the teaching of science, I can only rely on myself to make it happen. I will admit, there is a possibility that I will be involved in a master’s program that will require me to stay close to home, but, either in place of that or immediately afterwards, I can still make my own plan. All that I can think of right now is an extremely appropriate quote that I used in my Salutatorian speech and nicely sums up what I wish to happen at the end of these next three weeks:

“Do not go where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

First Break

It is finally the start of my first real break since I began student teaching. Classes ended on Friday, November 21st at 3 PM, and I bid the students farewell until December 1st. To my supervising teacher, however, I simply said: “See you on Monday.” This is because, although students would not be required in class on Monday or Tuesday, teachers were expected to attend a couple of professional development days. Despite this, though, I spent my weekend happily and managed to make it through these past two teacher workshop days without becoming completely bored. (I even taught myself how to make doughnuts!) At the end of today, I ended up walking the dog of an elderly couple and received payment as well as fresh air. Upon returning home with tired feet, I noticed an e-mail asking for someone who would have 4 spare hours and would like $65 for driving some vans to a storage area. Of course, I immediately volunteered. And so, tomorrow morning, I shall not sleep in but instead be ready to drive at 7 AM and attempt to beat a looming snowstorm.

The point of this post is to explain clearly that I am not yet having a break. At least, not in the true sense of the word. Yes, I can get away without planning for the next lesson just yet, and I can be lazy in the middle of the afternoon. But I don’t have the luxury of doing absolutely nothing. In just under 4 weeks, I will be making the drive back home, and I need to save as much money as I can for it. Christmas will also be coming up, and I will need to have at least a small amount of money to perhaps give out DIY treats this year. Even though I can’t just stay in bed all day anymore, I am thankful for my first break. I no longer view it as time taken off for the holidays. I believe it is simply time that is given to teachers in order for them to stay sane.

The Favorites

Every teacher has a favorite student. That student may not be the most well-behaved child or the quietest, but there is something about them that makes the job just that much more enjoyable. As I have been progressing through my student teaching placement, I have unknowingly become excited to see some faces more than others each morning, and the fact that I won’t get to see them any time soon after the next 4 weeks have come and gone makes me frown. One boy in particular is someone I will miss greatly, if only because he can make me smile by doing absolutely nothing.

The seventh grade class has asked me a couple of times if they are my favorite class or if I have a favorite student. Of course, my response is: “I don’t have favorites.” And that, of course, is a lie. Would it be a good idea to instead answer with: “Yes, s/he is my favorite for such and such reason…but don’t think I don’t like you, too.” ? I don’t think so. When they asked me today and I gave my usual response, they went on to say that a teacher they had in elementary school had said they were her favorite class but then pointed out that she probably said that to all of her classes. I will admit that their class stresses me out far less than another, but I don’t dislike any of the students I teach, as some have asked me about as well. I have admitted that some students frustrate me more than I would like but that it doesn’t mean I don’t like them. I said, “If it bothered me that much, I wouldn’t come back.” The relationship I have with the students is as honest as I can make it, but there are some things I can’t share because it may cause more harm than good.

To get back to the reason I wrote this post, there was a moment today with the boy I mentioned in the beginning, and I had forgotten about it until just a few minutes ago. During class, students were responding to analysis questions about an activity they had completed the day before. This boy was having difficulty understanding the question, so I went over to help. At one point, he said, “I like science, but I’m probably not going to do anything with it.” I looked at him and asked why he would say that. He answered, “Because I’m not good at it.” This boy has asked me for help on assignments in math and science, and he most recently asked when taking a math test. During this moment, he went on to say, “I’m always having to ask for help. Like yesterday.” This was when I looked at him and told him that there is nothing wrong with asking for help. The boy next to him then said, “I would like science more if we did fun labs like the one yesterday.” The student I was working with turned and spoke to his classmate: “You can’t expect every class to be a lab. There are other things we need to learn how to do.” I don’t know if he said this for my benefit, to make me think that he didn’t believe a fun lab was needed every class, but all I wanted to do at that point was hug him. But I didn’t. I instead just smiled and told him, “Don’t let having to ask for help keep you from doing what you enjoy. Getting help now will only help you in the future.”

This boy is adorable and does the oddest things. When he is happy or frustrated with something, he throws whatever is in his hands. He doesn’t throw it at anyone, but it just goes up in the air, and he keeps a straight face, as if it were an action he couldn’t control. He laughs about silly things and does his work when I ask him to. He used to wear a thin headband around his head, on top of his hair, as if it were a very small sweatband, and it was some kind of pinkish color. When he received his progress report for the first time this year, he thanked me, among his other teachers and mother, for believing that he wouldn’t fail. None of this may seem extraordinary, but these small things have made him a wonderful student to have in the classroom. I realize that this kind of thing will probably happen again, wherever I end up after, but I don’t think it will get any easier. I am hoping that I will be able to keep in touch with my mentor teacher and, through her, these amazing students I have had the pleasure to get to know.

Teach to the Test

In a little less than 1 month, I will be sitting in the disturbingly quiet and steadily air-conditioned testing room yet again, allowing an exam to determine my fate as a teacher. At this moment, I am sitting in my warm bedroom, reviewing practice questions for the Praxis 2 test, recording information for those that I miss, so I can attempt to remember what I must have learned and simply forgotten. But that simple thought is what is distracting me from studying and instead directing me to write this post. The questions that I am missing, the ones that heavily outnumber those I get right, involve information I don’t recall learning. And it’s making me nauseous.

Throughout college, I took a decent number of science courses. One took me to Belize, where I got to implement a research project on tropical marine ecology. Another allowed me to discover my extreme interest in reptiles and amphibians. Others taught me about the ocean or how to identify different bird species. It was only during my first year that I took introductory courses entitled Biology 1 and Biology 2: Form and Function. As luck would have it, my worst grade of the entire four years was in the Bio 2 course. To this day, I wish I could go back and take it again. But that isn’t my point. When I look back at the science classes I was a part of, I notice a trend of specialization. While I was expected to learn the basics of biology either in high school or within my first year of college, they were slowly built upon and incorporated into more advanced subjects. It never occurred to me that the new material I was actually having fun learning would be detrimental to my content knowledge as a life science teacher.

When I think about what I got to learn while in school, the classes that made me happy to be there, I am satisfied but also disappointed. After deciding that I wanted to go into teacher certification, my first step should have been to review what I would need to know as a secondary education science teacher. Had I done so, I may have done better in preparing myself for this test that will tell me whether I know enough about the subject to be able to teach it. But I also wish there had been a better structure for preparing me as well. It would have been extremely helpful to be in a class that taught to the Praxis test, one that went back and covered topics and important information that must have either been covered up or never touched upon. At this moment, as I read one of the practice questions, I know I was never taught about the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. And that upsets me. How am I supposed to prepare for a test when I can’t remember or don’t have time to take more classes? What will happen when I have met all the other requirements but can’t be certified because my score just isn’t good enough? I want to cry thinking that way. I want to yell and scream, arguing that I know enough now to teach, that I can re-learn and teach myself more content along the way. But it just isn’t that simple. Despite the feelings and emotions that fill me with negativity, I will try my best to learn what I can. I will finish the practice test and just hope and pray that whatever I know is good enough.