Response to Card #1
Hi Turin aka Dr. Bose.
Congratulations on getting married. I have been to my fair share of wedding receptions working as a banquet waiter. I have been hit on by some pretty creepy older women at those functions who seemed to think that making awkward advances toward a high school aged boy was the epitome of wedding reception entertainment. I can only pray that your song of choice for the first dance was not ?Wonderful Tonight? by Eric Clapton. I used to really like that song. Now whenever I hear it I think of the coating of ?Russian? salad dressing, sauces from buffet trays, and juices from half eaten chicken portions that I had to remove from the hundreds of plates. Luckily the experience has not ruined my taste for Eric Clapton?s other songs or buffets in general. I am sorry I did not get you a gift. I must have missed the invitation in the mail? or maybe you got my address wrong. I should have posted it up on ATOT earlier so you could make sure you had it right.
How did I decide to get into teaching? Well, I came to UW-Madison fully believing that Computer Engineering or Electrical Engineering was what I wanted to do. As I made it through a couple years of classes in the engineering department, I had many more bad experiences than good. Especially in math beyond basic calculus, my interest was just not there and I was not motivated to actively take full responsibility for my own success. Leading up to college I was very used to getting A?s by not studying and getting by on common sense and passive absorption of information from class lectures. When my attention was divided between many new things at college, I did not take the steps I needed to in order to really succeed in all my classes and get the most out of them. I was getting by alright in the subject, but I just did not have that passion for the material that I thought I had.
So? what to do after I figured out that I really was not loving engineering?
Basically I was two years into college with a sense that I was heading down the wrong path but I still felt like science and math were things I wanted to concentrate on with my life. I spent a lot of time thinking about my different options for majors in different fields trying to figure out what was right for me. I will admit that a very strong motivation in my decision was that my fiancée at the time (now ex) was on the track to become a teacher. I think she was one of those ?always wanted to be a teacher? types and was quite focused on that. Teaching also runs in my family. My mother was an art teacher for many years and my aunts were also teachers many years ago. These influences and my need for finding a new major got me thinking about whether teaching was something that I could do.
I tried to decide if I was the kind of person that would fit the idea of a good teacher. My first thought was about qualifications regarding content knowledge. I felt that with my educational background that I had a strong foundation in science and math that could easily lead to finishing the qualifications for teaching math or physics up to the high school level or teaching math and general science through a middle school level.
I then thought about my personality. Was I the kind of teacher that could deal with a room full of kids and not lose my mind? This was kind of a fuzzy decision. In general I am a very calm person and try not to lose my temper. I believe this is due to how I was raised (in kind of an odd way). My parents did an excellent job raising me, but my father would regularly lose his temper and yell at my mother (and rarely us). I was really bothered by this and early in my life decided that I did not want to carry on that ?tradition?. I think I have become a fairly patient and cool headed person. I thought that these were two personality traits that would go a long way towards making a good teacher.
I then considered whether I would actually be able to relate to kids in a way that would help aid the teaching process. Again, this was a tough call. My experience dealing with adolescents and high school students was extremely limited. I had never been a ?cool? kid and was not sure what kind of reaction I would get from students. Would I be one of those lame teachers that the students just think is bazaar and disconnected from reality? I think I eventually decided that this was less important than being able to apply my passion for math and science in the classroom and try to engage students that way. I had been in classrooms with pretty odd teachers but some of those teachers were the most enthusiastic about the topic which really went a long way in fostering my own engagement. As some people might be able to attest here on AT, I do like to be a helpful guide to others when I feel like I am qualified to be somewhat of an ?expert? of subject matter.
I pictured that my fiancée could give me some pointers and help me get on the right track for things I was less certain about and it would all work out in the end. We would live happily ever after as a couple of teachers doing our thing. With my background in physics, I decided that the best use of my existing coursework and knowledge would be going into the secondary education program for physics. I applied and found out that there were only two spots per semester at UW-Madison for this position. Unfortunately a large percentage of the application decision was based on GPA. Coming from the engineering department vs. typical classes someone would take if they were intending to major in education from the beginning left me at a bit of a disadvantage. Apparently there were more than two people who applied for the position because I did not get in.
Well crap? now what? I again looked at my class work and at this point wanted to figure out something that fit with my class background and would get me out of school in a reasonable amount of time. I declared a major of physics and began finishing up the track to completing that major. At this point I was getting into some pretty heavy duty physics and application of calculus that I never had a strong handle on to begin with. I was really struggling and concerned about what was going to come in subsequent semesters. I thought about my other options and wondered if middle school science would work for me. I looked at the requirements for the program and found out that my existing course history basically took care of content area requirements for the physics minor associated with the ?Middle Childhood ? Early Adolescence? program for grade 1-8 certification. Ok, so I would be off the hook for continuing down the advanced physics track? but what else would I need to do? The MCEA program is 5 semesters long so I would have to do all the external requirement classes in addition to those 5 semesters of core classes for that major. I was also not guaranteed to get into the program? especially with my relatively low GPA (3.0).
I decided to go for it and applied to the program. To this day I am still astonished that I got into the program considering the number of applicants and the qualifications I listed that must have been laughable compared to the many people that applied who must have wanted to be teachers for years. Leading up to the first semester of the 5 semester MCEA program, I took all the educational background classes I could to try to get them out of the way so I could manage to finish the whole program of core classes and major requirements in those 5 semesters. I am now about to finish the 5th semester and will be all done with all required classes for the major and minor. This was certainly longer than I expected to be in college since I am 25 years old and started college in 2002. I am very lucky to have parents who put up with all my crap and continued to support my tuition costs through this whole process. Scholarships I have won over the years have helped lighten the tuition load for them as I paid for housing, food, books, and other expenses. I will graduate without debt and several thousand in the bank and a steady source of income until August (working for HomeBrewerDude) at which point I hope to get an actual teaching job.
The teacher education program has been a very positive experience. I feel like I have learned a lot during it and have made up for lost time compared to people who have been sure that teaching was their career of choice for years. I have gotten a 4.0 for the last five semesters in the program and feel like I have been a respected student from my college teachers and a trustworthy / reliable colleague from members of my cohort (20 girls and 6 guys that I have had as classmates for this whole program). I have built upon my strengths and made a LOT of progress in those ?fuzzy? areas from my initial decision to apply to the education department.
The best part of the UW-Madison program was the amount of practicum time and student teaching time. I have worked in a local community center, a 4th grade classroom, a 6th grade math/science classroom, and a 7th grade science classroom as a practicum student for a semester each. This semester I am student teaching in a 7th grade math/science classroom. Throughout this time my responsibilities have increased every semester and I am at the point where I really feel like I could do this. It is certainly a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be. I have come home some days wondering what the heck I did wrong in the room to cause such a horrible series of events. I have had nightmares about what my students must go through on a daily basis due to family situations, homelessness, violence, etc. I have questioned why I thought I was cut out to be any sort of role model for my students.
I DO think of the students this semester as ?my students? though through all of this and really feel like I have been a positive influence in some of their lives. I know I have a very long way to go in becoming a truly good teacher, but on my good days I can really see this working out for both me and my students. One of my biggest concerns was whether I would be able to relate to all the students in my classroom considering the number of non-white students of varied economic backgrounds. Growing up in a predominantly white middle class neighborhood, I was not sure if I could really relate to all students or at least have a professional and respectful relationship with them. More than my other concerns about whether teaching was for me, I was worried that this was something that was either going to click for me or not, and I did not know which way it was going to go. I am glad to report that this student teaching semester has lessened this concern greatly. I am in a school with a 40% non-white student population and have had good success relating to students regardless of race/ethnicity. I try to be fair to all my students and feel like I have overcome most if not all of the ?you?re not a real teacher since you?re just a student teacher? attitude from the students. Although there are certainly a lot of discipline / classroom management issues in the classroom, I feel like I have gained the respect of most of the students in the room.
During this entire program I have been working at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research which has given me another perspective on education. I have experienced the educational system from the classroom teacher level as well as an ?outsider? looking at standardized test data and analyzing school performance based on just a snapshot of each student. I think this has given me a better understanding of the perceptions of both parties by looking through the eyes of the other. I think there are a lot of people on different levels trying to do what is best for teaching students, but I feel like being in the classroom itself is where I could do the most good. I think it is also the far scarier and potentially disastrous choice. I feel strongly that if you are considering going into teaching that you do not go into it thinking that you can get away with just ?getting by?. There are going to be students who test your patience on a daily basis and will not advocate for their own success. YOU will be the primary driving force in their lives on a daily basis that could mean the difference between a student giving up on school or taking the first steps towards getting back on the right track. That is not a job to be taken lightly.
If I was going to do this over again, one of the first things I would do is to volunteer at a local school to help out in classrooms at a variety of grade levels to get an idea of what to expect and view school with a fresh set of eyes. Even if you decide that teaching is not what you want to do, that time volunteering in school could be a positive influence in the life of a young man or woman at the school. So many of my students would love to have someone they could count on to be there and support them in a positive way in their life.
Good luck to you in your debate about whether or not to try teaching. I am glad that I took this path but I know there is an extremely high burn-out rate for teachers so anything is possible for my own future. I agree with your assessment that it can be a ?rewarding profession but also a daunting one?. My current girlfriend is also a member of my cohort and she is dealing with the same kinds of ups and downs that I am. It takes a lot of effort inside and outside the classroom to really be a good teacher. You should know going into it that this is not a regular ?8 hour a day? job if you really want to be a great teacher for your students. You are going to spend hours each day planning ahead and assessing the current learning of your students to see what you need to do next. I hope I am up to the task myself, but I know I have a long way to go before I could really be confident in my abilities.