My Student Teaching Assignment Was Summer School in the Bronx
During my last semester of classes at the State University of New York at Cortland, my advisor came into the class and interrupted the professor to ask if anyone was interested in a teacher recruitment program in New York City teaching summer school and the city would pay you for it and put you up in housing at Pace University — and I got up and followed her out.
I knew I wanted to land in the city, and I wasn’t going to let this chance pass me up. I registered, called my folks to let them know where I was going to be this summer, and I couldn’t wait to finish up classes and head south.
I met tons of new recruits at the auditorium in Pace that day, and after a few tutorial type sessions and some teacher training seminars, we were finally given teaching assignments. Mine was in the Bronx at a large and traditional high school near the zoo and I was psyched. I took the subway from one end of the city to the other, and walked to what would be the school I would land work at for the next 9 years.
I met my cooperating teacher, and he was in his 8th year teaching English in high schools all over the city. I walked into the class with him and he introduced me, I sat in the back and watched until lunch. When lunch came, we went to the lunchroom, and the teacher was given notice that he was being called to the office for something. 10 minutes later the dude came in and said they are short handed, and we’re going to be splitting time between two classes.
One thing I pride myself in not being as often as possible — is an idiot, and so I knew what he meant was I’m gonna be on my own.
By the time the afternoon’s classes ended, he was showing me where he got his lessons from and was allowing me to use them, in addition to setting up my grade book that mimicked his with how to writing in assignments, give points, tally attendance and behaviors, and therefore tabulate grades using one of those quintessential deep reddish/purplish ELAN grade books.
I went home on the subway back to Pace on day 1 knowing that I was going to be teaching tomorrow.
I met up with a crew of others that quickly became a regular group, where we ‘brainstormed’ at a local spot in close proximity to the bridge at the seaport. I listened to everyone’s stories first, and when it was my turn and I said I was teaching tomorrow — everyone went nuts.
That night I marinated over their sentiments of excitement, fear, anxiety, horror, and curiosity, all which led me to my first 5 hour sleeping night, and I was up before the sun and heading north feeling like literally the only living boy in New York as I commuted almost by myself.
I walked into the school and to the room, I even had keys. I checked out the room, took off some old stuff on the walls, cleaned out the area a bit around the desk, and began to write on the board.
From that day forth, for the rest of the summer, I decided to create a rhythm of completing objectives — however we know them as habits.
Here’s a list of the things I learned during student teaching, because of that experience:
1. I needed a lesson plan every day. Without fail, I always needed to be prepared.
2. The more quickly I graded things, the quicker I saw improvement.
3. When I posted student graded work it always made multiple impacts on classroom engagement.
4. The more honest I was, the better my relationship was with students.
5. I realized that the more often I went over how the students were doing, the better they did — and although that makes perfect sense to me now 21 years later, I didn’t realize that at all then.
6. The more variety I put into my delivery of instruction and involved the students — the better and more effective I could teach.
Perhaps the 2 best lessons that I learned that summer were the importance of being consistent, and how to treat students when they present a management situation.
Let me explain:
After the first two weeks, I was seriously struggling, after all, there was a girl in my class that was 18, and I was 21.
She asked me how old I was and I told them the truth. Although the relationships were forming, my teaching sucked. I was trying my best with the lesson plans and the book that we were given to teach, but the book was like pulling teeth and the kids could barely read and write in the first place.
I decided to practice grammar by writing a passage that day on the subway ride home downtown, describing what I saw and who I rode the train with. I wrote it on the board for the class to see when they came in.
Remember chalk?
At first they were dying laughing, and then they began to see my mistakes. I told them anyone who found 5 mistakes to rewrite them and it would be a quiz grade.
They loved it and born was grammar day titled, “Correct the Teacher” day. We came up with a quote, and quote day was born. I searched for poetry and we did poetry day — and I wowed them with everything from classics to contemporary music lyrics that we all as a class — could recite from the heart. We even called Mondays, “Crappy Mondays” because I loaded them with new stuff and if they did well we could have, “happy hour” on Friday because they constantly asked me to go out with them since we were the same age. It was great.
However, towards the end of my first month, I had a kid come in that bore the baggage of his home life and did not leave it there. When someone said something he didn’t like he snapped, and when I asked him to stop he literally told me to fuck off. At that point in my life not many people had — so it was a tough pill to swallow.
But what was I going to do, fight him? Tell him the same? Lose my temper? Negative — I asked him to be respectful, and come outside into the hall, and speak to me like an adult. The kids in the class loved it. I learned why he was so upset quickly, and I could see the kid filled with rage, sadness, and embarrassment.
I asked him to come back in, and I would even ask that he stay after class and I’ll ask his next teacher if that was ok. He could help me grade and he could use the time to get caught up. He loved it and it worked. I didn’t lose my temper. I never raised my voice. And I gave respect to a person first, so they would realize that I’m not the enemy, and I just wanted to help.
In your student teaching experience, observe everything. Ask a million questions. Plan and prepare and read and get involved in as much as you can. Take note of what works, ask to see other teachers teach in other subjects and rooms, and steal every idea you possible can, and put your own twist on it.
Not long ago I posted an article on How to Write the Perfect Lesson Plan, read about it here. For more information, shoot me an email at thetravelingpricnipal@gmail.com. Good luck!
