Intern Year: Spring 2014: Week 7

I got to observe another intern today that was substitute teaching in a 7th grade math classroom.  I was surprised at how different his classroom management strategies were from mine.  To me, the classroom seemed to be in chaos.  The students were not all engaged or focused on the lesson.  Some were trying to pay attention and others were completely off topic.  They were completing other work or just talking.   When the mentor teacher came back into the room to teach, the entire vibe changed.  I feel as if she has completely different expectations than the intern did.  He expected them to be quiet when she was talking and expected them to listen.  However, when the intern was teaching, the students were treating him as more of a friend and disregarded the expectations of the mentor teacher.  It was so interesting to me that we can all be from the same program and have such different teaching styles and expectations.  It also surprised me how quickly the students' attitudes and actions changed between the intern and the mentor teacher.

Throughout the semester I have been co-teaching in an inclusion English/Reading classroom with a Read 180 program.  In some cases, the general educator has put off her lessons and lesson planning on to me like she was doing me a favor.  The first few times I really enjoyed teaching, but after a while, I feel as if she was taking advantage of me.  When she did not want to teach or was going to be absent from school, she would push lessons on me with little to no time to plan.  Today, my mentor teacher was absent, and she tried to push an extra class onto me when she usually teaches it.  I explained to her that I needed to be in my classroom to complete things.  I felt as if I had to stand up for myself, even if this is the last week of my internship.  This made me realize that as a new teacher, some of the more experienced teachers might try to take advantage of me.  They might try to push additional work, responsibilities, or lessons on me that I am not required to complete.  I now see the importance of establishing boundaries and not allowing myself to be a dumping place for experienced teachers.

This internship has taught me so much about middle school, and it actually made me fall in love with teaching middle school.  My mentor teacher has given me great feedback and ideas for improvement, and I greatly appreciate it.  I now understand how middle school is completely different from elementary, and I am so happy that I got this experience.  In the future, I will be inclined to apply for more middle school jobs and possibly even high school!