Student Teaching

I'm beginning to get used to student teaching. I've taught three classes, and it's becoming less of a huge life crisis to go into the classroom and teach on my own.

Really, student teaching is very much like something else I've done: nannying. On the one hand, you have time to prepare and a bit of distance from the kids you're taking care of. This gives you a chance to come up with some ideas the parent or "real" teacher hasn't thought of.

On the other hand, you're trespassing into something you don't completely understand. Your "fresh" point of view on the class seems like intrusion if you state it too positively. Our professor told us it's like being in your mother-in-law's kitchen: you want to help, but you have to make sure to help in such a way that the master teacher still feels in charge. It would be a huge embarrassment for them if you're better at in than they are, even if only in one aspect.

The real problem is one I had on my very first nanny job. You walk into a situation with no discipline, where you are not respected, and there's nothing you can do because you only have them a few hours a week. What can you do in that time to undo a year of habit? You're not the authority. It's not that the students are bad ... it's just that they don't listen. If I had them every day, I think I could teach them I mean business. But in one day a week, all I can do is preserve the status quo. Too many changes and the master teacher might not like it. And I teach with the master teachers watching. They tell me what to do and I do it, because there's only so much leeway I have in preparing my lessons.

That's not to say that this has been my complete experience. This is not like the nanny days with little hoodlums running around and there's nothing you can do to make them sit still. Some classes are better than others. But the fact is, no student teacher can fix all the problems she sees. It's a little frustrating sometimes.