Rex is dealing with a huge disappointment. This semester is what he’d been looking forward to for the past 3 years at OU: student teaching. He is assigned to a 2nd grade class in a rural district in the next town over. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been what he’d hoped so far.
The first blow came when the entire first week of his student teaching was canceled by Snow Days because of the ice storms.
Then when he finally got to step foot in the classroom, his mentor teacher has been very unprofessional, being as tight-lipped and uninformative as possible, walking around questions he has and running to other teachers to gossip during any free moments and fleeing the school as soon as class is over.
Furthermore, the mentor teacher is known for having the worst class on campus, and we believe Rex was placed there for extra muscle from a male to squelch the unruly little kids. The teacher is disorganized and has poor classroom management skills. She gives no positive rewards or praise but Rex has heard her say cruel things to the kids.
And worst of all, the teaching curriculum is boring and aimed at dumbing them down; the kids are obviously bored with the chanting of phonic sounds, counting of dots written on numbers for addition, and memorizing “number facts/families,” and probably couldn’t care less about the “scripted lesson” the teacher has to read (rather than teach). Because the school is so poor and needs federal funding, they fall into the No Child Left Behind bucket and have to do it their way, thus the horrible curriculum.
After the first week and a half of this, Rex called his supervisor who came to observe the teacher to see if it was bad enough to place him elsewhere. But to Rex’s astonishment, the teacher started acting like an adult and acknowledged Rex’s presence and even his skills, so he’s thinking it might not be as bad as he initially thought. I said that just because the teacher had one or two good days doesn't mean she will stay that way.
And so this third week has produced even more pain and frustration for Rex. Yesterday, he first had to baby sit someone else’s class for 2 hours before the school found a substitute (which was a mother who had just moved there and was registering her daughter for school and had no training or anything). His mentor teacher berated him for not reciting the math lesson well enough because he skipped something and didn’t read it verbatim. The lesson didn’t even have anything to do with the worksheets the kids were given. She also chastized him for the way he took attendance! He feels that the kids won’t respect him because they’ve been so used to not respecting adults and because the mentor teacher cuts his feet out from under him. Not to mention that they are just as bored with the curiculum as Rex is. (But the teacher apparently loves it!) Then he had to go to the school’s weekly staff meeting that everyone feels is a waste of time. The day before, the mentor teacher took off 10 minutes before school got out, leaving Rex to dismiss the class, which she’s not supposed to do yet. On Monday nights, Rex has to go to his OU class where they are instructed to implement certain things into their teaching, but Rex is not allowed to do any of those great things in his 2nd grade class. Worse yet about that Monday night class is that Rex has to sit there and listen to the other students’ stories of their wonderful experiences. The only good thing that came of the day was that about 10 kids came up and gave him hugs.
He called his supervisor again because the situation isn't getting any better and he isn't allowed to fulfill the assignments given in the Monday night class. They will be sending another proffessor in to observe this Thursday who is supposed to have the say on whether to pull him out or not. Rex has little confidence that they will see his request as a “severe case” warranted of re-placement. The longer they leave him this classroom, the harder it will to place him elsewhere.
The internship is supposed to train him for his own class, but all he is learning so far is what he WILL NOT do in his own class. Instead of prepping him for his future career, this internship is making him think he chose the wrong profession! He had such a positive experience with the three weeks of team-teaching in a classroom last semester that this semester is more than discouraging. Rex is growing increasingly despondent.
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