A Dummy’s Guide to Student Teaching: Simplifying Complexity and Complicating Simplicity

Chapter 1 - It’s Your Very Own, Brand New Environment: It’s eerily similar to school when you were young, but a whole lot has changed in you and in here.

From the outside, very little has changed. It looks, sounds, and smells (especially during the warm months) like a school. Lockers slamming, complaints about uniforms, loud laughter, and silent insecurity fill the air. Take a moment to be grateful that you are not an adolescent. The classroom layout is the same with a few new technologies integrated into the scene. Kids are still kids, teachers are still teachers. You are wearing your “I’m not a real teacher” WSU College of Education name tag. You do not have keys to the building so you enter through the same doors through which the students enter. It is very important that you project an aura of comfort in the school building. It will be difficult at first but for your students’ sake and your own sanity, get comfortable. Ask for a locker near your home room. Ask for a desk in your home room. Request a laptop from the tech person, request a classroom key from the office, stop in and say good morning to the office staff. Explore the building often so that you know where things are when students ask in desperation during passing periods.

 Chapter 2 - Act One, Act Like One: It may mean nothing in a literal sense, but seriously, it means everything, kinda.

                One of the expectations is that you “Act like a teacher.” It is a very ambiguous way of implying a need for unity among the adults so that we can stand up for or against the students in our charge. We all have different ideas about what a teacher acts like. A seven year old’s perception is different from that of a college student. Create your own professional educator persona. Adjust it as necessary, but have it figured out as soon as possible for the sake of being consistent for your students. Dress for success. Don’t wear jeans unless it is a jean’s day. Do not participate in silly dress down days because no student will take you seriously in your pajamas even if it is pajama day. Get teacher stuff, like a desk in the classroom. Bring a few school appropriate books that project your dedication to learning and show your humanity. You are a member of the staff, though you do not get a paycheck and students will pick your “student teacher” status to pieces. Call the classroom YOUR classroom. (Do not act like that in MY classroom!) Work on your stern get-back-on-task face, your disappointed-in-your-behavior face, and your trust-me-I-know-what-I’m-doing face. All three will be of value in your first week.

Chapter 3 - Do Not Take It Personally: The students will try to hurt you, never let them know when they are successful.

                Kids are great. Kids are the future. Kids are works in progress. Kids are mean. They will not always appreciate your efforts. They will not be logical. They will not be considerate. They will be disrespectful on occasion or in some cases anytime they are awake. They will gripe when you challenge them and fail frequently. They need encouragement. They need consistency. They need to be able to figure out who they are. They are mean to each other and they will direct their aggression at you without warning like a velociraptor testing the electric fences in Jurassic Park. Do not ever let them think that they are successful in hurting your feelings. Like sharks or piranha, they will destroy you if they smell blood in the water. It helps me to imagine that we are all as big as our maturity levels. We educators (for the most part) are gigantic compared to them. This analogy helps me to view their verbal daggers as slight annoyances and not flinch when they lash out. Remember that whatever has their little backsides chapped probably has nothing to do with you. That being said, if you never tick them off, you are not doing your job.  

Chapter 4 - The Careful Collection of Influences: There are a million factors at work in a school on any given day. Yes, you are there to learn, but be careful who you let teach you.

                It is a balancing act of teaching and learning. Rather than earning a paycheck, your wages are those of experience, wisdom, and growth. Your college courses and advisors have gotten you this far along with your own personal motivations. Now is the time to absorb the influence. Dive into the pool of learning and swim around in it. Your CT was chosen to help guide you through the process. Theirs is the most valuable influence you will probably have. Your CT is only part of the experience. Observe other teachers in your placement school. Ask around and find out who the staff considers to be the best and most effective teachers. Ask the students too. Between the sad reality of some students’ dysfunctional home lives, poverty, hormones, human error, personal tensions between teachers, differences of opinions  with administration, union politics, and your own personal ups and downs, seek out positive attitudes and cling to them. If you are asked how you are doing, don’t use the lame standby answer “fine” rather pick a few better adjectives like “fantastic” or “great” or “if I was any better I’d be in a straight jacket.” If you cannot muster genuine enthusiasm, fake it. Your students need you to be uplifting and so do some of the more battle hardened veteran teachers.

Chapter 5 - Go Get ‘Em, Tiger: Before this race is over, you should be thinking about the next race; when you will be doing it all as a paid professional.

                Ask for references from your CT, other teachers and administrators in your building. Your principal should know who you are. Invite him or her to come observe you in your classroom. Their positive opinion of you might as well be a gold medal for your potential future employers to gaze upon. Impress everyone from your CT to the counselors, the office staff to the custodians. Epitomize good teaching. Exude fresh desire and competency. Smile through boring meetings. Attend interview days, even if they yield you nothing. They are great practice. Assemble your resume and make yourself look like a rock star. Email principals about openings in their buildings. Be concise and clear about your desire to interview at their school and attach that shimmering resume. Research a school before you interview there. Know a few things about it. Master answers for these two questions: “What is your biggest weakness?” (be honest, but not too detailed) and” Why do you want to work here?” Remember that graduating from college is not your end goal; a teaching position is your end goal. Being paid to do what you want to do is your end goal. A diploma and licensure are steps on the way to reaching that goal. A job to help pay off that massive student loan is your ultimate goal. Lastly, enjoy teaching. Enjoy what you do and you never work a day in your life. Besides, you are working with the best product in the whole world: young minds and hearts. Be awesome at it!

A Student Teacher, 120 6th Graders, A Field Trip, A Homeless Man, An Experience

                Nothing makes an educator more nervous than taking students out of the school and into the world on a field trip. The stakes are particularly higher when the students are 6^th graders and the field trip is to a historical museum full of irreplaceable and valuable artifacts, involves a walk through a downtown urban area, and a meal at a restaurant during lunch hour. This was the position that I placed myself in last month. During a college class last semester, I learned of a local history museum that had received an endowment from a patron that covered the cost of buses for student field trips to the museum. I am quite interested in local history and wish to impart some of it onto my students, regardless of their own interest. I believe that people should know something about the history of where they live and that 12 year old human beings are desperate to figure out just where they fit into this wide wacky world. Local history can help put a person in context.

                I suggested to the 6^th grade team at my placement school that this museum would be a prime location for a field trip. The idea was accepted and my stress level began to rise. A few blocks worth of walk to a small city park decorated by sculptures was added to the field trip itinerary, as was a meal at a restaurant. Details were hammered out over the following month and the day of the trip was upon us when I realized just how worried I was. I was afraid that my students would not be interested in the material. I was afraid that my students might act like fools outside of the classroom. I was afraid that my colleagues would consider my idea of visiting the museum to have been a horrible mistake once we were there. I was very afraid that my students might accidentally or intentionally cause damage to an irreplaceable artifact. I was afraid that my students would embarrass the teachers and school with poor behavior at the museum. I was afraid that something bad might happen during the walk through downtown. I was afraid of a million variables. Why had I suggested this trip?

                As it turned out, the students were not riveted by the material in the museum. But, they behaved well and did not cause any problems (or damage thank God) during our time there. The walk to the sculpture park was anticlimactic. Students got loud, but they had spent two hours being told to hush in a museum and we were outside. I was beginning to think that all of my worries had been in error. Then we went to lunch…

                One teacher and I somehow were put in charge of over 60 6^th graders in a fast food restaurant. The food ordering process was slow and painful, but our students had been advised to bring lunch money and they all made their way through the line. A warning phone call had been made to the restaurant manager the previous day, but he still was sweating the influx of adolescence into his eatery.  One student dropped his food and it was replaced at no charge (probably out of fear of a riot.) I ordered my own food and took a spot near the back of the restaurant where a few of my more troublesome students were eating and chatting. It was then that I noticed a man sitting alone at a booth.

                One student approached me and whispered “That guy is homeless. He’s making a sign that says ‘Homeless- please help’.” That student was discreet, however many of my students were not. Soon several of them were walking by the man’s booth and staring at him before slipping back to their peers and snickering. My Spidey-sense began to tingle.

One student with whom I have had constant issues due to his immaturity was sitting at a table near the man. He watched as his classmates acted distastefully. Suddenly he spoke. “That ain’t right y’all. That could be you someday. That’s messed up, you acting like that.” I nearly stood and applauded this uncharacteristic display of maturity. Instead, I beckoned him to my table and he hesitantly came over. Before he could ruin the moment by defending himself, I told him how proud he had just made me. “You just proved to me that you are a kind and mature young man.” He shrugged off my compliment and pulled a couple of dollar bills from his pocket. “Can I give him this?” I asked him to leave it at my table and told him that I would give it to the man when we left to “avoid making a scene.” He nodded approval and left the money on my table.

Suddenly, several students approached my table as if they had all been privy to the conversation. Before I knew it, fifteen or so dollar bills and a handful of change sat before me. Ours is a school where 86% of the students are economically disadvantaged. These are poor children. But they wanted to give what they could give to help this man. When the time came for us to leave the restaurant I took the offerings in my hand and approached the man. “Here. My 6^th grade students wanted you to have this.” I said. “Thank you” he said. “God bless them.”  Before I knew it he continued “Nice to know they aren’t rude like SOME PEOPLE!” He turned and glared at a few of our 6^th grade girls who had been less than considerate with their behavior.

“Let’s go.” I nervously barked and gestured to the girls whose eyes had tripled in size. Though they never follow orders without retort, they listened to me in that instance. We all left the restaurant.

My heart was in my throat as I followed the last student onto the bus to return to school. I had every right to be fearful of the activities of that day. But I had been given a glimpse of hope for the future. 

Long in the Tooth and a Little Thin on Top

It was not the first time during my half decade progression from non-traditional college freshman to nearly-fully-trained student teacher that I was grateful for my age. Many times as a college student, I have muttered under my breath with regrets that I did not start college sooner. Frequently I have groaned as the load of diligent student interfered with my duties as a devoted husband and attentive father. My age has occasionally been a benefit however, and this day it was definitely a benefit. Today I was glad to be (and look) old.

Today I had the pleasure of meeting with an upset parent. This parent had told my Cooperating Teacher that she was not going to have “some student teacher picking on her daughter” and that she would “be right there to straighten this out.’’ I was terrified. My CT smiled and tried to offer calming anecdotes. This is part of the job. These things happen. She only has her daughter’s side of the story. You have been doing an excellent job, Erich. You have nothing to worry about. Appreciative as I was for her efforts, I was still terrified. The student in question (let’s call her Sara) had been a challenge since the first day of the school year. She has a big personality, a booming voice, the respect of her classmates, and perhaps the biggest brain in the 6^th grade. She has strong convictions and she is as stubborn as a… non-traditional student teacher with a job to do.

Sara has challenged me on my teaching strategies, the relevance or accuracy of content material, and on a personal level as a man dealing with a 12 year old young woman. On some occasions, her ferocity has been a tremendous ally, an agent of educational progress in the classroom. More often however, it has been a storm cloud on my picnic. Recently, her challenges have grown more frequent and more personal in nature. She’s smart and quick-witted, but lacks the self-control to use either trait to her advantage, yet. She may someday rule the world, but I will not let her rule my student teaching classroom.  Earlier this week I resorted to rotating her to the next classroom for the sake of getting through the day’s lesson. She responded in loud defiance and stormed her way directly to the office in spite in spite of the punishment she knew would ensue. After filing my first ever disciplinary report (I felt sick as I wrote my summary of the events) Sara was put in ISS the following day. Twas a Thursday she spent brooding In-School Suspension…  As she passed me in the hall after school I said to her “Tomorrow’s a new day, Sara.”

Friday WAS a new day in my mind. My age and mileage has taught me to make efforts to view life in that way. Sara had other ideas as class began. Again she made her opinions known about seemingly every aspect of the lesson, the environment, and the world. I had planned for the students to spend the class period writing the final copies of their district mandates essays. I have had success with YouTube-ing “epic video game music” and running a slide show of social studies relevant images to accompany the epic music. Her complaints drowned out the symphonic tones and worse yet, distracted her peers. I paused the music and asked everyone to stand up for a brain break. I stood on a table and the students followed my example as I stretched my back, legs, arms, and (wait for it) hands.

It was the hand stretching that set Sara off again. “My finger hurts” she said. “I don’t care.” I responded. The pin was pulled from her internal grenade and I didn’t even know. A teacher HAS to say “I don’t care” at least twenty times a week in a 6^th grade classroom. We finished stretching and students got back to writing, Sara was even quiet. I closed class a few moments early (I like to take a few minutes to ask what exciting weekend plans everyone has) and the students lined up near the door.  Sara opposed to everything everyone said until I suggested that she keep her opinions to herself for another 30 seconds until class is over. “Whatever, weirdo” she said. Her classmates laughed. The CT flew into action. “That’s it! That’s enough. You’re being disrespectful and I’m calling your mother.” Before I knew it, the bell rang, students left, and the CT was approaching me with the phone in her hand. “Mom’s coming up here to talk it out. She’s upset. She says no student teacher is going to push her daughter around.”

An hour later, the principal was asking if my CT and I could come to his office to meet with Sara’s mom. We walked the quiet halls and the CT and principal both offered encouraging words. “It’s been nice knowing you.” He said. No- that was my imagination. “I remember the gist of their combined messages was “This is part of the job you have chosen to pursue. It’s going to happen. This is a good learning opportunity.” I took a deep breath as he opened his office door. Sara glared up at me from her seat beside her mother, who also glared up at me from her seat.

My eyes met the eyes of an angry and protective mother. I watched her size me up. She looked at my inexpensive tennis shoes, my less than cutting edge fashion attire, my clean shaven face (no trendy soul patch or goatee here), my weary wrinkles and my bald head. I felt her assessment of me go from “Wannabe Teacher Jerk-off Hipster Kid” to a guy who has mileage, street smarts, social awareness, and life experiences enough to maybe even manage some wisdom. Most of all, I think that she saw an older guy who genuinely wants to be a positive influence on her daughter’s life.

As the meeting proceeded, Sara’s version of the story melted under scrutiny. Her mother grew frustrated with her daughter’s trivial complaints and reported inability to control her mouth in class. The CT and principal spoke kindly and confidently on my behalf. She warmed as I mentioned some of Sara’s great efforts and successes. Smiles were being shared by all of the adults in the room as the meeting concluded. Sara even managed to show some slight remorse for lying about me. It was a learning experience for me and I hope for her. We still have months to spend together.  

It comes to this

By Erich Rumback

Years of preparation

Years of challenge, trial and error

Months of prioritization, organization

Breaking down and building up

Miles of walking, lost in thought

Or pondering with laser focus.

To class, to car, to class, to library.

To school, to work, to home and to bed.

Rinse and repeat. It comes to this.

“Daddy, do you want to play with me?”

More than anything else

With all of my being, son.

Gritted teeth through pain and anger.

Why didn’t I begin this journey sooner?

I lacked the motivation, plain and simple.

My wife, my sons, and my daughter

My pride, my joy, my life’s reason.

It comes to this.

Read, write, test, quiz, assess, analyze, reflect

For them, for me, for the children, for the future.

Battered and bruised, weary and confused,

It comes to this. More of the same, except different.

A degree, a license, a job, and a break.

My fears have not withered away with experience

And the autumn leaves just make me mad

Driven by promise, by trust and desire.

My will, my knowledge, my mission, my path.

A mountain stands between me and my goals.

Someone once told me, in another lifetime,

“Work smarter, not harder.”

I am sick of climbing. I’m dynamite, and it is time to blast.

I will see the other side of this mountain.

It comes to this.

 I will succeed.

Perilous Territory

I am like Rambo and education is my lethal skillset. I tie the thin, dingy red bandana of past successes around my head. I take a handful of the mud that surrounds my students’ lives and smear it across my face for effective camouflage (and because I need to taste the grit in my teeth; it helps me focus.) What was once a Scotch mist of motivation-sapping moisture has become an intimidating downpour accompanied by the thunder of administration and the lightening of parents. Adversaries are hidden everywhere in the jungle. There are a few boons as well. It is no different in a middle school. A protective mother guerilla is no less dangerous than the parent of a 6^th grade girl is. Traps that were set by teachers and parents generations ago still pack deadly punches. I must tread carefully or end up as worm food on a smooth, classroom floor, swept nightly.

                I begin at a steady pace. Early on there is a downward pitch to the ground. My speed increases. My feet and intentions sometimes move faster than my foresight. This land has grown rocky and uneven. Occasionally I trip and dash my shins or palms on the vicious ground. Thankfully, my blood goes well with my khakis and collared shirt. The students barely seem to notice my wounds. That is good.

Out of the jungle rises a range of peaks. Memories of rudimentary maps flash before my eyes. Others have climbed these mountains. Some were still bleeding from their wounds when they offered me their advice, others look as if they must have flown over the more difficult aspects of the landscape. They tried to show me what to watch out for and what not to grab for purchase during my ascent. I remember some of it, but not all. Like pieces of different maps: incomplete, but enough to get started, if you are like me.

I scale the mountains of acronyms, research findings, academic texts, and teaching methods that my college tenure has exposed to me. I remember many. Some look foreign to my weary eyes. Regardless, I climb. My arms ache, my fingers are calloused and bloody from constantly gripping for stability as the mountain quakes. This is no mountain. This is a volcano. From above, I hear a bone-chilling shriek. I see it now. A great winged beast circles my position. It is a black mass against a stained sky. I have heard the creature's name whispered from the lips of wretched and broken souls who also attempted this very mission. Their eyes darted back and forth, as they relived their own agony.

The beast, known by many names, is most frequently called Burnout, the Inevitable.

Somehow, in this overgrown jungle of life and death, pass and fail, of hope and despair, he has caught my scent. He circles lower as I press myself behind a boulder of calmness. My fingers feel for my weapon as I focus on the moments of serenity I have witnessed it in this mad world.  

I remember the refreshing air that accompanied my students when they wrote. I can hear their brain cells working together to generate words, sentences, and completed thoughts. Smiles frequently accompany wholesome self-expression. The energy flows like a mighty river so long as the path is clear from obstructions, overanalyzing, and disinterest. These fall from the trees above and inhibit the creative course of the river. In spite of the obstacles presented by the constant winds of change in this Pedagogical Jungle, the river can always find a way through. That undeniable force longs to be free within the minds of my students.  

A shriek interrupts my reflection.

Burnout circles lower. It knows where I am and how I am hiding.

I draw my weapon, remember the cause, and rise. Deep breaths. In and out.

My chance has come.  My time is now.    

Nearly Halftime

                Rapidly, I am approaching the last days of the first half of my senior year of college education in preparation for the hopeful acceptance of a position as a middle school educator. I feel somewhat fortunate to be seeking licensure to teach both English and History at the middle school level. It really is because the two subjects so easily intertwine that I chose this program (and the hopes of looking more hirable after graduation.) I have learned to integrate literacy strategies into my lesson designs out of natural training because I am educated about incorporating literacy strategies into my teaching. Most notably, I find that giving students graphic organizers that pave part of the way for them tend to draw out students’ confidence while modeling proper spelling, punctuation and form, and doing so in an intelligible format. I like to encourage students to use their imagination with a choice of a few open ended writing prompts that if properly responded to will show their comprehension of the material that I have tried to teach them. I am also a fan of letting them garner inspiration from an experience. I have successfully persuaded students to write based upon several experience-based prompts this semester:

• ·         A creepy (impromptu) urban legend about the third floor of the school building
• ·         The production of a sidewalk-chalk map on the outdoor basketball court
• ·         Digging holes with shovels (some for the first time in their lives) for engagement with Sachar’s Holes, of course
• ·         And today by creating a nearly full-scale outline of the great pyramid using yarn, stakes, fishing line, ribbon, and three huge balloons (F.Y.I. one must notify the FAA if planning to fly tethered balloons more than 500’ or within 5 miles of an airport.)  

I think that the biggest trick when it comes to increasing student literacy is reaching students at their own levels and helping them to grow in confidence as writers. They must feel that they have something of value to communicate. In order to feel like writers, they must feel that they have a proper genre and audience (one man’s poetry is another man’s song.) Teachers are capable of providing authentic audiences for students in the form of gallery walks, oral or video presentation, online display in blog or other social media form, email exchange with another class, or any other number of ways. Students must first realize the power that they can wield by being literate through experiencing feedback from multiple sources. I will practice peer-workshops and specified real audience opportunities for my students to not only take away some of the students’ apprehensions to give them as many chances as possible to improve at self-expression and comprehension of others expression. Students might develop a greater appreciation for their education if what they learned in one class proved helpful in another class or in life, now. What a novel idea!

http://gawker.com/5992398/the-unbelievable-photos-taken-by-the-crazy-russians-who-illegally-climbed-egypts-great-pyramid

KATE was great!

This past week I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 KATE Conference along with many of my classmates and middle and high school students from around the state. It was a welcome change to finally be in rooms with a speaker and fellow listeners where I was not always the oldest person in the room. College is a young persons’ game to be sure. The conference in general had a palpable buzz of nervous or anxious energy during its opening hours as the attendees filled the ballroom for the opening keynote. All of that turned into camaraderie and commitment with the opening speaker’s comfortable and confident presentation style and message. It was clear to me at that point that we were in for something good.

The first day’s break-out sessions did not disappoint me. The first session I attended caters to my desire to keep many aspects of the classroom traditional, such as hands on art projects when educationally appropriate. Rethinking Language Arts and Crafts gave me several new ideas of ways to incorporate outside the box means of exploring literature and giving students new mediums for expressing their understanding of material. The second session I attended was Power of Discourse:  Engaging Students by Activating Their Voices. This appealed to me because I have always felt that students will take authority over their own literacy if given enough choice and the right opportunities.  I enjoyed sessions about linking music to critical thinking though analysis of lyrics and about connecting local history to our state college readiness standards. I found both of these particularly because of my personal weaknesses (music) and personal strength (history) as means of helping students to master content and develop personal connections to their educations.

On day two, the sessions I attended were equally informative and helpful as I near the beginning of my teaching tenure. One session titled Non-Fiction: Unlocking Creativity suggested methods of incorporating current event stories into class curricula. This is a topic that I feel strongly about making a part of my own teaching. I believe that students should be encouraged to know and analyze the news as future voters, politicians, parents and teachers. The opportunities will never cease presenting themselves. Some wise advice was presented by the presenter of Command Control and Conquer Your Classroom. It was reflective and contemplatively effective for me. The final session I attended; I’m a little embarrassed to admit was in hopes of attaining technological hipness. I finally learned what hashtag meant at Twitter- Not Just Selfies and Food Pics. I also learned some techniques for using Twitter and other social media as a teaching tool as well as for developing professional and personal rapport with students as people.   

I will admit that my choices for sessions were affected by my desire for comfort with classmates and familiarity in the strange new atmosphere of educated, seasoned veteran teachers with years of knowledge, experience, frustrations, successes and failures. I also ventured to sessions without familiar faces out of true interest in the material. Several times, the decisions of which sessions to attend were difficult due to conflicting scheduling. Overall it was a great experience that I hope to make a habit of attending.  I noted many websites and online resources for my future years as an educator.