I Remember This Much....

I don't remember the details of my first day as a teacher intern at Mark Twain Middle School 18 years ago, but I do remember that I did not feel welcome.  In hindsight, I'm willing to take partial responsibility for my perceptions of the day.

I was an outsider.  Not only not from Trinity University, I majored in agricultural economics -- not education.  I graduated from Texas Tech University on May 15, 1993, but I started summer school in Trinity's Master of Arts in Teaching program during finals week at Tech.  At the end of the six-week summer session, I moved to Denmark, Maine, to work as a camp counselor for Camp Walden. Camp ran until the last week in August, but Texas' schools started the second week in August.  Everyone knew I was going to be starting my internship a week late because of my work commitment.  At least I thought they did.

My experience with adolescents was limited to my younger brother (a senior in high school at the time), my own experience with Masonic youth organizations (Rainbow, Job's Daughters, and DeMolay), and my time at Camp Walden.  My mother taught at a high school English and journalism (but had been a full-professor at a community college for a while).  My paternal grandmother taught first grade for 40 years.  My paternal grandfather served as principal and then tax collector for a school district.  I'd been on the Dean's List, kept my scholarship all four years, and had only ONE "C" on my transcript - ever.  I was a smart girl.  How hard could this "teaching thing" be, really?

So, it is quite possibly with a very large chip on my shoulder than I walked into my mentor teacher's eighth grade classroom that August morning eager to begin my nine-month placement as at teacher intern.

I remember this much...

"I told them I didn't want one [an intern] this year.  And, they gave me you.  Where were you?  You're not from Trinity are you?!"

She was a very "global" personality -- teaching units on "Power" and "Revolution" instead of "Colonial America" and "the American Revolution"  She planned interdisciplinary units that made little sense to me or to the students - I thought.

She and her friends went to lunches off campus.  I felt left out even when included.  I just never quite felt like I fit in like I thought I should've.  We had things in common.  We both had Morgan horses.  We had common acquaintances (and I would run into her regularly for several years after I left her classroom).  I thought as a "mentor teacher" we would be fast-friends.  We weren't.

I'm sure there were good days in my mentor teacher's classroom.  I don't remember them.  I never had a space that was mine to store my coat, my purse, my "teacher bag."  My desk was a nearly broken, graffitied student desk.  I never had the respect of the students.  Maybe I hadn't earned it.  Maybe they knew what I knew -- she didn't respect me.  (I made a few friends from Trinity in summer school, and I remember the fun we had - taking their students to the regional YMCA camp for team building activities, coffee and study sessions at La Madeleine near campus, and road trips to check out schools in Bryan/College Station.  I don't think any of us quite understood why we watched Rashomon in class one evening or how it related to secondary education.)

I struggled with classroom management.  I made mistakes as a teacher intern.  If you asked my mentor teacher from that fall/winter, she would probably be able to name them all.  Some were bigger than others.  I tried to learn from them all.  She probably didn't see it that way. 

Several people saw my struggle and still saw potential.  In mid-January, the university reassigned me to a different classroom on the campus.  From my first day in my new placement, I felt welcomed.

"We're going on a field trip to the Witte.  Here are your 10 students [sixth graders]. (Pause) This is Miss Foster, our new teacher."

I still made mistakes.  I still struggled with classroom management (something I think all teachers feel like they must revisit daily).  Most of all, I learned I could be a strong teacher who cared for her students.

So, what did I learn from my placement in the fall/winter of 1993-94?  I learned that this "teacher thing" is pretty hard work, and my family made it look easy.  I learned that students need routine and structure as much as they need to investigate and explore the content.  You can have too much of a good thing - too many projects/activities, too many worksheets, too many tests, too many skits.  The ancient Greeks said it best, "Nothing in excess." 

I graduated with my MAT on May 9, 1994 -- one week short of one year from finishing my Bachelor's degree.