girlwithalessonplan:

notajournalist:

I’ve been seeing a lot of questions from student teachers floating around lately. These questions have been getting great answers, but they’ve also been getting an added line of ‘your host teacher should know’ or ‘you could ask your host teacher’. I have to throw my two cents in, though, and say…

GWALP:  And yeah, that sucks you had a not-great-host teacher, but we don’t know all the nitty-gritty details of these student teachers’ situations.  

They’re asking us questions that we can give GENERAL responses to, but the specifics or more accurate responses should be the host teacher or some other school rep—even student teacher cohorts would be a place to start.  We’re (I’m) speaking from the assumption they’re going to a welcoming place, because host teachers are supposed to be volunteers.  I’m sorry that wasn’t the case for you.

And if someone were to ask me, “What do I do when my host teacher won’t make me feel welcome or give me the time of day,” my response is:

Call your university facilitator ASAP and get some type of intervention or new placement.  YOUR FUTURE EMPLOYMENT MAY DEPEND ON IT BECAUSE HOST TEACHERS WRITE EVALUATIONS TOO.  

Take that bolded advice.  I had one of the most discouraging, uncooperative cooperating teacher experiences right off the bat, and it nearly ruined me — both in spirit and in evaluation.  At one point he asked me, “Why don’t you know any of this?  I’ve never had a student teacher from this college before who didn’t know what they were doing.”

In that particular situation, I also was unfortunate to have a facilitator who was equally poor: she could not or would not give me any information about how to do my check-ins or evaluations, nor could she or my cooperating teacher keep observation dates straight even when I gave frequent reminders.

I was a transfer, and a scheduling error had left me without the necessary intro seminar that I didn’t realize I was supposed to have.  I really DIDN’T know what I was doing — or where to find that information.  And I was too embarrassed and afraid to ask for help.

Make sure that you advocate for yourself.  If you’re having issues with your cooperating teacher and/or your facilitator, ask around and see if any other student teachers have had this issue and what they did that may have resolved it.  Additionally, assess whether or not the issues are something that you could address with them directly in a respectful and non-confrontational manner.  If the conversation doesn’t resolve the issues, if it aggravates the problem, or if you don’t feel comfortable even having that conversation, call your student teacher placement office or equivalent, explain the problem, and see what interventions are available (or, if necessary, if your placement can be changed).

If I could give any piece of advice, it would be this: If something doesn’t seem right, ask someone about it.  Never feel ashamed or embarrassed to ask for that help.  You’re still learning.