I'm failing my teaching internship

The BBQ Pit
1

Apparently, I’m not cut out to teach in an urban setting. I had a meeting with my mentor and coordinator today, which I thought would be a dialogue (trialogue?) but turned into an attack on me. It turns out that I have until Friday to turn it around, or else my internship may be terminated.

The problems with my teaching are as follows:

  1. My planning isn’t up to snuff. I agree with this, but I think I should have been told three or four weeks ago, not today. I guess it would have helped if my “mentor” actually talked to me, rather than just rolling her eyes at me whenever I talk or just sitting there looking pissed off during our planning period.

  2. My relationships with the kids are lacking. OK, I’m from the 'burbs. I don’t say “bitch” or “ho” or “gay” or “fag,” and I frown upon such language. It’s a little hard for me to relate to their world. I respect our differences, but I don’t understand the culture of the city I’m working in. On that note, I don’t think I can understand that culture in the seven weeks I’ve been there. That seems like somthing that might take at least a year to “get.”

On the same note, though, I do talk to the kids in the hallways and after school. I don’t try to be a dick, and I ask about their world because I’m genuinely curious. I just don’t take time out of my content instruction to deal with this. I was told today that I should, but that’s pretty much the opposite of everything I’ve been taught to this point. There’s no ED class on “Building Relationships.”

  1. I’m “Too intellectual” when I speak. What. The. Fuck. I use words like “mediocre” instead of “average,” for example. So, in order to teach, I have to act like a dumbass. “Forget all of that wonderful vocabulary you learned, and forget about holding students accountable for asking when they don’t know what a word means, you should talk like a Cretin!”

It would have been nice to know I was doing this poorly four weeks ago. Instead, my mentor was told to let me “sink or swim.” What if I applied that same standard to my students? Fuck the kids who don’t get it! Let them sink or swim!

I’m angry and upset right now. I fully expect to be flamed, and I really don’t give a shit right now. I’ve put so much fucking work into this, and now I’m going to lose it. Shit, shit, shit.

2

Sounds like it might just be a bad fit?

3

WE, you’re probably right. Unfortunately, this time the bad fit is a $2500 pair of pants that can’t be returned. I can either buy another pair of $2500 pants next fall or opt to keep the ill-fitting ones and move on.

If I fail, I still get my degree in English with a Poli-Sci minor, or so says my coordinator. I better check that with the University, though.

4

I went through my student teaching 20 years ago and was fortunate to get a good teacher to work with in the school district I lived in. Did you get to choose your school? Is your school one where there are a lot of other problems that are affecting the morale of the staff?

I hope your coordinator is stepping up for you.

Go Broncos!

5

There’s a fine line between sounding educated and sounding like a pretentious asshole. I don’t know where you fall, but I think many people don’t realize how much their choice of diction can alienate people. If you are teaching kids who don’t understand what you are saying, then you should be more clear, or you should relate your message to something they understand/like. Being a good teacher means you have to gain their respect. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with some of the things they are interested in. Learn more about popular culture. Knowing about the feud between 50 Cent and The Game, or Dave Chapelle may seem dumb, but if you managed to throw a reference of two into your lesson (without it seeming forced), their respect for you would increase ten fold. If that doesn’t work, you could always wear a doo-rag.

6

MrK, I’m in Battle Creek (I hope we’re not at the same HS, else I’ll feel like a complete ass). It was my second or third choice. I would have rather been in Kalamazoo or Portage, because gas is expensive and I’m familiar with the area. The $20/4 days is killing me as far as gas money goes.

My coordinator is completely in the corner of my mentor. If you’re familiar with Choice Theory/Reality Therapy, they used that to place everything back on me. Why didn’t I ask the questions that needed to be asked? Hmm, maybe because I didn’t know what questions to ask. Why don’t I have better relationships with the students? Perhaps because I was focused on the content too much, or perhaps because I didn’t know what to talk to them about, other than simple BS like, “So what are you listening to now?”

Ack, I’m frustrated.

7

You need to get an appointment with your school advisor and see if you can get a different teacher co-op for the final term. My school used different termonology so I am assuming that what I call a co-op you call a mentor. Some teachers are really good with student teachers and just see it as a continuation of their calling to teach, and some teachers find they resent the student teacher taking their kids away.

#1 Planning is sort of the biggest part of the ball game. Make sure you find out what he is talking about though with this. I had a co-op that kept saying he wanted me to something ( I sort of forget what) but what it finaly turned out he meant was my transitions didn’t work well. I had been trying for weeks to do what I understood him to say, when that wasn’t it at all. The part that confuses me though, is can you feel when the lesson flows and works. Why do they need to tell you you need to plan more? Also, you are pretty far into the term, how much planning do you need your mentor to be doing at this point?

#2 For you to use street language would be entirely inappropriate in the classroom even if you were from that enviroment. The kids won’t buy it, and it would make sure you never ever got a job. That said, you do need to have an understanding of their world.

#3 Why not keep your vocab to a couple of big words a day that fit with your lesson and build vocab that way. I have no idea what you teach, but work it into reading in the content area, then vocab is always a good test filler.

8

Hey, it’s your first lesson as a teacher. Kiss ass, do what they want you to do, get through the quarter/semester, etc., and have a good life outside of school. They hate you if you’re clever and despise a fool. So find the middle ground, grit your teeth until they fall out and then decide if you actually want to teach. Here, there wherever.

And then do it for another 25-30 years.

whistlepig

who is not being a smartass or cynical, but is a teachers kid since 1962 and who has been working in education for 20 years. But not in the classroom with people looking over my shoulder.

9

If I hadn’t decided fifteen years ago not to go into teaching, your post would have convinced me. It sounds dreadful. It sounds as if the people who are supposed to be helping you on your career path are hoping you fail. I guess urban schools actually choose to have second-rate teachers and we should stop wringing our hands wondering why the students are doing so badly.

My advice is to cut your losses, but you may feel more strongly about being a teacher than I ever did. There must be some alternative to this.

10

Please email me, wmulax93. I know someone who was in a really similar situation.

11

Isn’t it possible that you’d be a fantastic teacher in another type of environment? It doesn’t always have to be a blackboard jungle situation, does it? I’m not aware of any other profession where you have no choice and are expected to adapt to any & every environment.

If you want to teach, don’t give up. Good luck!

12

I was just wondering what subject(s) you teach?

13

Surely you aren’t basing this absurd statement solely on the OP’s experiences.

14

These people are not there to help him on his career path. They’re there to help the school make sure there’s not going to be a person hired incapable of doing the job he’s being hired for.

Right. Because we have so much information here that wmulax is a great teacher, so I guess urban schools really want second rate teachers. Do you even know anyone who teaches in an urban school? Because what you wrote is a severely obnoxious and ignorant statement.

15

This is a great opportunity for you to learn to live some of those high-falluting, $5.00 words- proactive and humility.

What good does it do you to passively sit back and not ask for feedback while cursing your mentor for passively sitting back and not giving it? What good does it do you to discount everything your mentor suggests because you think he/she’s an idiot? (Even if they are, that’s really beside the point).

Ask for feedback, ask your mentor how you can improve. If they are vague, persist in a polite way until you really understand what they mean. Do it in a way that demonstrates that you want to get better.

Then implement their suggestions and ask them again how it went. Use lots of “I” statements - “I’m asking because I want to improve.” And when a suggestion is given, just nod and think about it. Don’t argue or give explanations why you’ve already tried it and it hasn’t worked or why it won’t work.

Ask for feedback at least one time per day. If being a humble student who knows he has much to learn is a foriegn concept - then pretend. In 25 years or so, you’ll realize what a cocky little asswipe you were. Till then, act as if you already know that.

I’d bet dollars to doughnuts that when they say you have to connect with your students, they DO NOT mean they believe you are deficient in your knowledge of who’s who in the rap world. The probably DO mean you aren’t picking up on the times the students are “getting it” and you can move on or aren’t “getting it” and need a concept repeated.

Life has handed you a big fat bushel basket of lemons. Instead of bitching and moaning that those dumb mean people have hurt your feelings and don’t understand you and life sucks…Start making lemonade

16

So, today was day 1 of trying to improve. It didn’t go so well.

As far as being a snotty little asswipe, I really don’t think that I am. No, I haven’t been asking enough questions, but I don’t always know what questions to ask.

My relationship with my mentor feels adversarial. I wish I could feel comfortable talking to her, but I really don’t. I feel like she is against me, when she should be trying to help me.

Am I a great teacher? Nope. Do I feel that I’m doing an average job as an intern? Absolutely. I am having all of the same problems as the other nine interns at my school, and only one of them is also failing. There is a huge difference in how each intern is graded. Granted, there are two interns who are much better than the rest of us, so we’re not all on the same level. But, all of us who teach English are of roughly the same ability. The difference is that the other two English interns were eased into it with team teaching, whereas I was thrown into the fire three weeks into my time at the school.

As far as today goes, I was supposed to sub for my mentor (i.e. work for pay). She came in before school to print some stuff off, and was there when first block began. Well, our first block has an EI student, who forgot to take his meds and went ballistic on another student. While I was trying to get the EI kid out of the room, she came back in and started yelling at everyone, completely stepping on me. I was given little opportunity to handle the situation. My focus was on the kid who was going apeshit, not the three who were laughing at him for doing so. My first priority was to protect the safety of the rest of the class, so I had to get him out of there. Next was going to be my dealing with the rest of the class, but I didn’t get that chance.

So, after that incident, my mentor decided I couldn’t be trusted to stay alone with the class. She stayed, and I lost a day’s worth of pay.

During our planning time, she sent me to talk to a counselor of sorts (I can’t easily explain her job, but it’s sort of like being a counselor for teachers). The counselor really helped me brighten my outlook, and told me to go in tomorrow armed with a plan to discuss with my mentor how I’m going to improve. I only hope that what I take is enough.

17

I’ve only been to Battle Creek once about ten years ago, but it didn’t strike me as an urban jungle. Has it changed?

18

Sheesh, I post a four-sentence response and I get two separate dopers calling me on it.

UrbanChic, you’re right. I was extrapolating based entirely on the OP. In point of fact, we don’t even know that wmulax93 is a teaching intern at all.

Trunk, a mentor is indeed supposed to help you on your career path. As for the rest of your post, I think you can read the OP as well as I can. And yes, I do know urban teachers. I took classes from a couple dozen of them. All of them were allowed to use words like “mediocre.” So I guess we’ve proved that it isn’t most urban schools, just the jacked up one where wmulax93 is stuck.

My apologies to all urban teachers who don’t suck, and to those mentors who help rather than set one up for failure.

I love the idea of “too intellectual” appearing on an official form explaining why you failed as a teacher.

19

Doesn’t sound like it. Sounds like the same filthy hellhole I grew up in. I don’t know where you went in BC while you were there, but it sure wasn’t the (very dangerous) hallways of BC Central.

wmulax93, I really feel for you, pal. I survived 3 godawful years in that miserable pit, and that was back…well, a long time ago. And I was just a student, probably very much like the ones who are making you miserable right now. I didn’t have my past investment in money and time and my future on the line.

All I can offer is my encouragement and support, and the knowledge that if you can survive BC Central it can only get better after this. Unless you’re also ROTC and get sent to Iraq, of course. Good luck.

20

I don’t see what’s wrong with weaving “getting to you know better” with instruction.

Examples are so useful when you’re a teacher. You’re going to have to “understand their world” to be able to find all those cools examples that demonstrate whatever boring abstract concept you’re presenting.

Kids watch TV too much. When I was in high school, I went through an annoying stage when I had to relate everyone to a particular TV character. I would crack myself up doing it, too. Maybe you should watch more TV (yes, I know), particularly the programs your students are watching. You can find out what kinds of “literary” examples your kids are being exposed to and try to relate them to whatever you’re teaching.

Do your students have to do a lot of creative writing? Have them do “fan fiction”, where the students write a story using their favorite TV characters. Then have them read their stories out loud to the class.

My 12th grade English teacher created what she called “The Wall”, a bulletin board in the back of the classroom where all of her students could scrawl an anonymous message or two. It had a theme that changed on a somewhat regular basis. For instance, at the beginning of the year the theme was “Right Now” (because the Van Halen song by the same title had just come out and the teacher liked the video that went with it). Students would write basic stuff like, “Right now I don’t want to be here!” While others would be more profound with stuff like, “Right now I’m wondering where I’m going to be one year from now.” Good stuff, all around (and not a lot of profanity, either). Not only did we write a ton, but we had fun reading what others had written, particularly since it changed on a daily basis. It was like being on a message board.

It may be the urban setting that’s getting you down. But it might also be the fact that you’re older and simply not “hip” to what the younguns are doing. It also can’t be easy having someone standing over your shoulder, watching you in an evaluative way. When you start holding your own class, it will be easier. The students will see you as a “real” teacher and you will have more confidence.

Is it just because of the “big words” you use, or is it also the way your relate to your students when you’re talking? If you’re always trying to be formal and by-the-book professional, you’re going to come across as stiff and yeah, “intellectual”.

Only a few kids will think, when you use a word on them that they don’t know, “Hmm, let me go look that up in the dictionary!” Most will think, “This joker is SO not cool.”

I don’t think you should dumb down your language (especially since I have no idea if you’re too “intellectual” in the first place). But I don’t think you should necessarily view the criticism as off-base, either.