Student Teaching: The Site Staff

I student-taught at a local high school, a miserable experience which ended with me getting the boot after six abortive weeks.

The credential advisor chided and comforted me in one throw: "You simply were not ready."

Yet the year of study, of provisional lesson-planning, of practicing in classrooms in the South Bay, working with mentor teachers and taking in lessons and insights from university instructors was supposed to prepare me, I thought. At the time, all I could do was grouse in the truth that all had not ended well, and at the time I had no one to blame but myself.

I did not know how to articulate the challenge which faced me as a teacher. I was expected to be prepared for anything, to ask questions that I had no idea that they needed to be asked. One teaching instructor phrased it best: "Teaching is building the plane while you fly it, or learning to drive while careening down the street behind the wheel."

Neither metaphor inspires any comfort in the face of  the sheer terror which I faced for those six weeks, so upset and overwhelmed was I that I called in sick the first week, so tortured was I on the inside. I had never felt so in bondage in all of my life. Never had I felt so bad, so sick with fear, that I did not want to go to school.

Then again, the challenges which I had faced as a student teacher the first time around stemmed not just from my inexperience, but also the overwhelming opposition which I faced from the students, individuals who knew more about the school and the class than I did. They were the experts, far more than I. And they used their advantage to the worst degree.

Nothing but disrespect -- even the site staff were miserably unhelpful. The principal was pressing in hours on the weekend to draft speeches for exchange students, so nervous and panicked that she shushed me away the moment that I walked into her office to request access to the computer lab in the main building. She remembered me briefly from my high school days, for she had been the assistant principal there at the time. She was a lot nicer in those days, but by then she was a hurried and harassed administrator trying to do more than she was called for.

The assistant principals at that high school were no help, either. Mr. T. was an older man, one who was so clueless when I came to his office a month before my student-teaching assignment was slated to begin. The credential advisor, Ms.  Chide-and-Comfort, had tried to contact him a number of times, yet with no success. When I finally arrived, he was shouting and groaning about a host of issues, none of which sunk in with me. His  secretary briefly introduced me to Mr. T, who told me that the University was supposed to contact the district office, who would then set up a student-teaching assignment at the high school. Quickly, though, he wrote down my name and contact information, then pushed past me to get in touch with someone else.

Hectic, unprepared, rushed and stressed -- those four words summed up Mr. T. I met him briefly the next week, when he surreptitiously introduced me to my mentor teacher, then he showed us both the door.

Then there was Ms. R, a squat woman who always wore sweatpants. She seemed to get bigger every time I met her. In December of the previous year, I had set up and appointment with her. As she lumbered into the hallway, she told me that we needed to hurry up, because she had a meeting at 10:00am, which dissolutely enough was the same time as our appointment. Within five minutes of our appointment, she disappointed me greatly, informing me that I would only be allowed to observe classes. I needed to teach a lesson, though, in order to complete the first semester classes at the University. She summarily blew me off, then I escorted myself out the door.

Now that I was student teaching at the school, she still was no help. She disdained me when I was visiting with the guest speakers. not even giving me the time of day. Already, I did not like the woman. She also scolded me in the hallway of the main building, telling me that I had received a complaint from a parent. She could have done me the service of sharing this embarrassing and unsettling news with me in private.

I could go on about what a horrid monster this lady, a quiet type who oozed disrespect, much like Jabba the Hutt, except that the Star Wars character did not hide his bandit-like nature.

And I cannot neglect to tell you about the dean, Mr. D. a real drama queen. He assumed that he was a wizard who had all the answers. I met with him briefly, in which he told me that one students would be withdrawing from my class. Of course, why he was allowed to enroll in the school in the first place was never answered. Still, there were a number of students who more likely should have been sitting in a jail cell instead of harassing me every day for six weeks.

When I needed help with one student, a young lady who would walk in and out of class, sing and dance just to get the class off-task. When I sent her packing one day, I got a terse note from Mr. Drama Queen:

"The teacher is supposed to take every other move to deal with a student. Classroom management, calling the parent, etc. Save me for the big stuff."

No help there, and never would there ever be help. Two weeks later, I witnessed the dean chew out Ms. R, the assistant principal whom I had grown to despise in line with her waistline.
"Well, fine then! I don't think that I am going to come into work tomorrow!" He huffed, then stormed out.

"He's a real drama queen," one teacher remarked. And thus, his effeminate moniker stuck with him in my mind.

Three years later, I met up with some high school students who had gone to that high school around the same time that I had student-taught there. Almost everyone of them had been arrested and sent to jail. When I mentioned the dean, Mr. D., they told me that a group of students had rounded him up and beat him down.

I could not think of a more fitting punishment for an administrator who had done absolutely nothing to help me with those unruly students and feckless mentor teachers and stalling principal staff.