Final Fieldwork Reflection

I finally figured out why my co-op confused me for so long. I’m always asking myself the unbelievable question “is this teaching?!?” because I know it’s not. I used to think her teaching was not good teaching… I thought it so much I KNEW it wasn’t good teaching. Now I realize… it’s not teaching AT ALL.

I called this from Day 1 in May when we met for that initial interview. I KNEW she’d swallow me whole and spit out my bones. She went one step further in calling my department with untrue complaints: claiming I was arrogant and a know-it-all when all I did was sit silently in the back of the room, watching. Those very complaints were all because she was too lazy to read the packet detailing my Fieldwork assignment… I handed her the very document that said Fieldwork was a third observation, a third teaching, and a third doing all the other teacher things to be done. She just never read it, and never really understood what my job was in being in her classroom.

I’m secretly disappointed in myself that she intimidated me in the back of my mind… even if I never let it show, it still happened. Except, over time, it festered into hate for the one person who was the antithesis of everything I’d ever been taught good teaching was. Here I was, stuck with a co-op who embodied terrible teaching, poor methods and execution, no self-reflective practice at all, and (worst of all) motivated by money (why ELSE would she have her doctorate and only be teaching at the high school level?). I wouldn’t LET her intimidate me, but for a long while she was winning the race…

At least until I taught a lesson. That day I finally won… and she’s stealing MY lessons because they’re so good. The only negatives she even had to say about my lessons were grammar problems… her stupid compulsion about correcting my grammar aloud, in public. But that’s exclusive only to her – it says nothing bad about my teaching. And if nit-picking my grammar was the only critique she had on my teaching? Then GO ME, I’M AWESOME!

And at least now I know how to deal with absolutely arrogant assholes… stroke the ego just enough until they’re lulled into false security, until you can strike their weak spot and outsmart them at their own game.

Final Score? Student Teacher Katie Kennedy: 1. Dr. Mentor Lamesauce: who the hell cares? I just won.

Bonus points? My professor who came for that meeting, who will be with me as my professor during student teaching, admitted she’s proud of me and glad that I survived – things ending well for me even made her day better!

I won. It took FOREVER, but I did.

Meeting, or Backstab Supreme Part 2

She played the victim card.... completely threw one out of left field and played the victim card. "I just don't feel Katie's learning anything here. I don't feel needed" were her exact words. If I was smart I would have said "Neither do I" in terms of not feeling needed.

SHE was the one who made the call to the department! Now she's playing up feeling victimized!? SHE was the one who called and said this wouldn't work out for the Student Teaching semester, and then when my professor sits down with us she claims she doesn't feel needed!? She doesn't TALK to me AT ALL! I refuse to sit in the back of her poorly run classroom and "learn by watching." If anything I'm learning what NOT to do by observing her! I have a backbone, and she's not going to stop me from doing what I came here to do!

We worked it all out and I teach two lessons next week. I don't know how I'll do it yet, but I will outsmart her. I know I can do a better job of teaching than she can. I know I'm good at what I do.... I tutored two of her colleague's students and improved their grades, so CLEARLY I do know what I'm doing!

I will beat her at her own game. My lessons are going to be awesome....

Backstab Supreme

My co-op called my department to complain about me.

Apparently I am an arrogant know-it-all who isn't learning a thing from the mentorship. My professor will be coming in to run a mediation meeting to try and clear things up.

I can't BELIEVE she did this! A woman who has her doctorate yet still teaches in a HIGH SCHOOL because she's not good enough for professorship calls me arrogant! How can I be arrogant if I'm sitting in silence in the back of the room!? She's intent on making me into a piece of furniture in her classroom - and upset with me because I won't stand for it!

The point of this experience (something my co-op fails to understand) is not to be a passive observer of her methods in the back of the room, I've had 4 YEARS of observation in the teaching program... observations are done now! No more! Fieldwork has a time for observation but it ends at a point! Fieldwork is supposed to be a third observation, a third teaching, and a third professional (grading, self-evaluation, meetings, conferences... all the behind-the-scenes teacher stuff). She doesn't get any of that because she hasn't even read the packet detailing my Fieldwork assignment... the one I gave her on my very first day to let her know how things were planned to go!

I can't trust her.