~Teachingly Unconfident
2006-12-04 - 11:07 a.m.

Applying for stuff is hard work and I don't want to go through all the effort of applying only to have someone already in the job who either interviews better or is just plain more experienced than I get the job. What's the point?

There are two performing arts-based jobs that are also part time on offer. Their criteria are intimidating because they say things like "demonstrated high ability to plan and implement music-based learning experiences from P-6" and so forth. I don't have that kind of experience. I suppose there's always the good ol' "you've gotta be in it to win it", but when they put it like that, I'm not even sure I want to be in it! When they've already got established programs in areas I'm not experienced in, it's just plain stressful and fretful.

I don't think I've had any confidence as a teacher since that awful teaching rounds experience at StPC. That class was impossible and that teacher just undermined my authority and confidence at every turn. In such a nice way that I felt as if I was just inadequate. Looking back, I can intellectually know that I was doing fine and it was really more that we just communicated so differently and her expectations were a little unrealistic. I think she thought that, because I was on my last rounds, I should be pretty much capable of taking a grade myself. The thing is, I'd only had two years of teaching rounds and had a whole year more to spend learning in her class. Then, when I did try to take initiative, she usually took back control.

Again, intellectually, I can look back and say that I did lots of things well, but it's not enough. I remember she had so many tough kids in her class. There was one kid who I really don't think she liked. He was a naughty boy from Ethiopia and I remember that, in one of my early lessons, he and a friend simply ran out of the room on me. He played up at every opportunity and drove us up the wall instead of doing his work.

Except, he had a sense of humour. Supervising Teacher always squished him - "he shouldn't be joking and mucking around when he was supposed to be working" was her attitude - and she generally maintained control over him using such a method (which was annoying because she wouldn't let me use similar methods with any of the kids who really did need a firmer hand from me). I, on the other hand, laughed at his jokes when they were appropriate and then did what he really needed: gave him kind and considerate help with his work.

He was a classic case: boy struggles with work so mucks around to cover it (and to at least feel that he has some power/control/something he stands out at). But he wasn't stupid, he was simply behind everyone else because he'd come from another country.

By the end of my time in the class, he was working for me without any misbehaviour. He knew he had to work, but he also knew that he could come up and get help with his work and wasn't ashamed or afraid to do it. You may not realise just how big a thing that is, having those kind of students actually request help. When he didn't have to work, he came up and talked to me and liked to sit next to me at lunchtime. Now, if that isn't a success, I don't know what is!

But what did Supervising Teacher do? She would intervene and send him away and tell me that he came up and bothered me too much! ARGH!!!

And the class were shocking. They were just a rowdy bunch. I, obviously, didn't have a firm enough manner with them, but I also was well aware that Supervising Teacher had had a long time to establish her authority with them and was able to have organised chaos in her class - that is, everyone doing lots of different things and being a bit noisy but still doing what she wanted them to. I had to establish my authority. They took forever to do what they were told at times - such as to stop talking or to come to the floor, so I started timing them. I told them that however long they took, they'd have to sit that long in silence and I gave them updates: "Ten seconds...fifteen seconds...twenty seconds..." So, the first time, which is usually the hardest because they're learning what I expect and whether I'll follow through with what I say, they got up to sixty seconds of sitting in silence. I made them do that and, as a result, settled the whole class down and really got their attention. Sixty seconds seemed like such a big number to them! Hehe, only a minute.

Afterwards, Supervising Teacher told me that sixty seconds was an unreasonable amount of time to expect them to sit still and quiet.

????????!!!!!

It's school! Of course they need to be able to sit still and quiet for a minute at a time! What do they do when she's talking to them? What do they do when they're working? What do they do when listening to a story? What do they do when listening to other students share or present? What do they do at assembly? But there she went again, undermining my authority. She constantly told me that I was too soft with them, but when I tried to implement strategies to overcome this, she told me not to. She gave me no real guidance and left me floundering, while feeling as if I should know how to handle the situation and being surprised and a little disappointed with me every time I didn't psychically anticipate what she wanted me to do. She told me that the kids were confused about who was in control - her or me - and yet constantly stepped in whenever I was dealing with something.

In fairness, I accept that I didn't always know how to deal with some of the kids in the class - they were very tough - and I also accept that she and I communicated really differently, so there may have been many times when we planned together or discussed things and then it was only when I taught the lessons that it became apparent that I hadn't understood all of the things she'd implied. I think what I hated, though, was the way she always made me feel as if I was lacking. I think when I finally had a heart-to-heart and explained how I required more explicit instructions from her, she said something along the lines of she expected me not to need every little thing explained by now. Which, of course, made me feel like crap when I had to say that I did need her to be more explicit. It didn't matter that I'd never taught kids with half the problems that her class had. It didn't matter that two years of being told what to do by teachers who didn't want to let go control of their class was not a reasonable preparation for the strategies I would need for teaching her class her way. URGH. She was so nice, and yet she left me pretty demoralised.

And then I had my Feral Prep class at DPW in my first year alone and, if I wasn't demoralised before that I certainly was then.

I don't think I've ever really felt as if I'm a proper teacher. I've never really felt as good as other teachers or as in control. I feel as if I revel in the little failures of other teachers - even of my friends - because it means I'm not the only one who struggles.

And you know, sometimes I can look at it all and say that most of my feelings of inadequacy come from me. I can tell myself that other teachers don't know what goes on in my classroom and I don't know what goes on in theirs. I can say that if I only put on a positive front and focus on all the positives in my own teaching, then everyone else will think I'm going brilliantly.

The problem is that, just often enough, there'll be some comment from someone else that implies I should be doing something better and it sticks with me. On the one hand, being a CRT has been great because I've been able to see how much better a teacher I am with some classes than others - which has really given me confidence that often it's nothing to do with my teaching, it really is largely the kids. It's just that I also am constantly going into classes with kids I don't know so well, routines and I don't know so well and struggling with their you're-not-my-teacher behaviour.