Teaching Internship
Published September 2nd, 2008 in Blog UpdatesFor those who don’t know, I’ve been going to a university to be a secondary (high school) teacher. This semester, I am completing my degree by doing a full-time teaching internship at a local high school. Today was the first day for students, so it was pretty exciting/hectic; the teacher perspective is quite a bit different from the student perspective and the school is significantly different from the high school I attended. I don’t know if I’ll post much about the experience here or not, since I typically keep the focus of this blog less personal, but it’s worth mentioning that I’ll have even less time than normal to rant (and whatever else I occasionally do here).
Ian,
I know that you are more than extremely busy dealing with high school but I hope that you will force yourself to blog about the experience regularly. There are three reasons:
1. writing helps us clarify some of our own ideas.
2. your readers will understand present day high schools better.
3. years down the road you will give thanks that you have these notes to look back on — what seems so incredible that we think we can never forget it, fades away over time.
Robert
I’m definitely going to keep a bit of a personal journal about it, but I do have to be careful about privacy issues, so if I do post about it here, the posts will be a bit more generalized. I may end up doing a weekly review or something like that. The experience has been great so far, but it’s making me realize that I didn’t truly appreciate how my previous job at the university was a “do it and forget about it” type of job. I didn’t have to ever think about the job when I wasn’t working. Teaching is much closer to a lifestyle choice, making it somewhat similar to the military in that regard. I’ve already learned quite a few things that surprised me. For instance, teachers report to school on time even if school is delayed from snow or another issue. In general, if the other schools of the district are open, but one particular school is closed, the certificated staff from that school are still required to show up and work. That may be a district policy or state policy, but I’m not sure yet how high up some of those decisions are made. From what I understand at this point, most districts require the teachers to be there at least a half hour before the school opens to a half hour after it closes, but I haven’t come close to getting out that quickly. There’s a lot to do, part of it related to being an intern, but most of it is due to all the extra work that teachers have to do. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to post some about it this weekend with some coherence and maybe some paragraphing
Thanks, Ian.
Teachers have to give up being comfortable in order to actually teach others. But those in the modern American educational system have to give up having a life in order to deal with all the examinations, rules, regulations, and expectations from those who don’t want to assume their own responsibilities for getting things done instead of delegating them to others.
Stay the course,
Robert