Looking back at my comments on "staying the course" of my last entry, I realize how easy it is to reflect with some distance, and how easy it is to get all wrapped up in the same old same old once you're back. Or, perhaps, because new issues arise so often in a classroom, it's hard to sense the progress one is making in ways unconscious and gradual.
I am, indeed, staying the course as best I can, but realized a few things this week within that metaphor, if you will. First, I'm not actually "staying" with these kids. I have two more days, then my cooperating teacher is back. It will be a swift exit on my part, so that I have enough time to prepare my portfolio for presentation. I regret that, for their sake, but mostly for mine. To be honest, this whole student teaching experience sometimes makes me feel so selfish: for all of the learning I have gained, all of the effort I'll ultimately have put in to justifying myself as a teacher, it seems the only people I have anything to prove to in the end are my students themselves. What would they make of my unit plans, my reflections, my technical brou-ha-ha of video cameras and digital photos?
And then, there is the second realization, also a bit painful. Not only am I not "staying", but the "course" has proved to be, at times, not entirely genuine. Another common Catch-22 of the student teaching experience is the simultaneous desire to maintain a consistent classroom environment between oneself and the cooperating teacher and to develop one's own style of creating an atmosphere and tone for learning. Perhaps the greatest regret that washed over me in my exhaustion at the end of last week is that I wonder if I've been so concerned with filling the shoes of my cooperating teacher in her absence (and I guarantee you, they are large shoes!), that I've forgotten about the shoes I have on already that, quite frankly, I've been dying to show off a little. Storytelling, banjo, hands-on learning outdoors ... these are all extra-curricular hobbies that I was anxious to fold into traditional classroom instruction. Where did they go? I can't say I know for sure.
And yet, what about all I have learned?! What amazing tools - from management techniques to strong curricula, not to mention a deeper understanding of the development of fine motor skills, as well as of the awareness and skills of mathematical concepts and language usage. For all of the experiences I've had teaching thus far - assisting in Germany for two years and educating outdoors on Bainbridge Island for one - this experience has, ultimately, brought me the furthest. Never before had I been involved in planning long-term with one group of students, let alone be the one responsible for them. Now look at me! I know now how to turn a week at school into a logical and balanced sequence of learning and play experiences whose value will reflect back to me in the enthusiasm and work of my students.
These itches make me wonder if my growing pains are turning to restlessness. I know full well I still don't even come close to holding a candle to my cooperating teacher, but perhaps for precisely that reason, I am eager to keep teaching, to stay that course and to work at it till I've got it right --
in my own shoes.
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