student teaching extras
Some concerns I have at this point at how prepared we are for student teaching are: 1) We don't know where we are placed yet... 2) On top of teaching and getting into the lesson plan groove, we have to take on small tasks which could turn into big tasks. For example, I was talking to one of my friends who is student teaching in an elementary school right now and she was talking about getting materials together for a bulletin board. I know that myself personally, would take forever to do a single bulletin board. I feel like you need some creativity and artistry to do a good job at this, which are definate skills that will need to be developed during student teaching. The somewhat silly jobs that need to be done so that your classroom actually helps your class are so varied and I do not feel like I have even started thinking about I do and do not put up in my classroom. What rules, what student work, do you do a word wall, do you do murals, etc.? So many questions!
And a third thing kind of unrelated, but still an extra issue that teachers need to deal with is when students come to you with personal concerns. Today, in my class, one of the students went up to my teacher and told her that some things that the male teacher on the team had been doing in terms of touching on the back or shoulders, or comments, made some of the students feel uncomfortable. Mrs. Russel was kind of taken aback and did not know what actions to take at this point. She thinks that he does not have the intent to make his students feel that he is being overly friendly but at what point do you disregard students that come up to you with something like this versus when do you actually do something about it? I think my teacher was just going to say something to him to just be aware that the female students were becoming sensitive to actions and comments that he does in and outside the classroom, so to just to watch what he does. But it is something that teachers could easily brush off as well its just a silly 8th grader, misinterpreting. But what if its not, and in too many situations, it is something that happens. So my teacher and I got into a small discussion about how hard it is balance caring for the students and going too far with it. She said that 5 years ago it was something that she had to think more about because she was a young teacher. But that now, she can be the grandmother/mother type figure and make those physical connections without people thinking twice. Therefore, this is something that all of us, as new teachers, need to be aware of as we start teaching. I have noticed that boys are a lot more friendly and open to me than the girls. So this scares me that my talking to the boys could eventually lead into people thinking there was something more there behind the scenes. You want to get to know the students, but how do you do that equally for all students yet still do it on a personal level? I don't know, so many issues for the classroom!