Personal Reflection: The Case of Rachel
Student teaching has, predictably, been one of the most frustrating and rewarding experiences I’ve had—definitely the most rewarding at Swarthmore. At the beginning of the semester, I felt somewhat adequately prepared to (1) plan a lesson that was marginally successful and (2) be in front of a class facilitating a discussion, since I’d had prior teaching experience. I was frightened of (1) having to know “everything” about my discipline, (2) the concept of grammar, (3) having to be observed on a daily basis, (4) balancing my job with extra-curricular activities, (5) I could really make this list go on indefinitely. As the term began, many of these fears dissolved to some extent. I began getting into a routine and realizing that I could cope with this semester without going completely insane. One thing that struck me, however, was that my fears proceeded to evolve into annoyances, sometimes even chores, and I felt (to put it a bit melodramatically) stuck in a rut of mediocrity. In retrospect, having so many things going on in my life spread me thin to the point where I was continually unsatisfied with everything that I was doing. Now, as not fun as this sounds, there were moments, lovely lovely moments in student teaching in particular where it began to feel rewarding again and that, if I were in a focused frame of mind (re: had a teaching job), I would feel as if this were something I’d like to do for at least a while. One particular moment was a class in which I observed a student who had frustrated me beyond belief, finally demonstrate that I had some effect on her life. I realize this sounds vague, and specific examples will follow, but the abstract concept I just mentioned is what caught me off guard.
Rachel* began the class self-identifying as a “ditz,” calling herself “more or less dumb about lots of things.” In English 9, the students’ first assignment was to write about what they think their strengths and weaknesses will be in the English classroom. Rachel wrote that she loved “deep discussion”—a comment I would capitalize on later—and that she liked to write, but that she felt weak in a lot of aspects of writing mechanics and literary analysis. She was never shy in class, and would frequently muse on the novels and essays we were reading in class discussions, but would always qualify her comments with self-deprecating addendums such as “but I don’t really know,” or “I’m sure I’m not right.” During group work, I would also frequently overhear her speaking about how other students would have to “explain things to her, because [she was] the ‘stupid’ one.”
While I reiterated to her that she was far from stupid (both in class discussions and in written feedback), it was difficult to find a genuine way to convey this because I could see where her insecurities were coming from. Her argumentative skills were adequate in discussions and even in thesis-statement form, but her essays were often thinly supported (even if she had “fine” quotations), and her spelling and writing mechanics posed recurring problems—she had some difficulties with word choice among homophones, distinguishing sentences from sentence fragments, and smoothly incorporating quotations into her essays. I attempted to approach this problem far too passively, simply providing written feedback and hoping she would note it for the next writing assignment. Finally, for an essay which students had to revise before getting a grade on it, Rachel still made the same mistakes and failed to incorporate a lot of the advice I had given her, despite frequent requests that we talk about her work. This was a particularly frustrating assignment for me to grade and hand back, given that I wanted to support her in any way possible, but couldn’t focus on my student-teaching enough to do so.
Students in my English 9 class were required to complete a free-write every other week, in which they were to write for about half an hour on whatever topic they wanted in whatever form they wanted. One week Rachel handed in a poem describing the culture of being on-dorm. The poem itself was a simple narrative explaining what it was like to live on campus, but it was filled with at least a dozen rich descriptions. Figurative language that activated each sense in innovative and vivid ways dominated the page. She demonstrated an understanding of figurative language which was far more sophisticated than any other student had thus far. I eagerly wrote feedback and encouragement on this poem, perhaps to a point of over-zealousness. I was terrified she would look at it, see the grade, and then just shove it in her binder. I noticed, however, a slight smile that day in class when I handed back the week’s free-writes.
Now, this isn’t an overnight success story. It’s not even a month-long success story. It is far more accurately a work in progress. Rachel’s demeanor during class discussions did not change significantly for the next few weeks, but I continued to reference this sophisticated use of figurative language on written feedback whenever possible.
The class finally finished up the unit on To Kill a Mockingbird, and we began studying Of Mice and Men. I was particularly excited about this transition, because one of the first lessons I had planned for Of Mice and Men was a lesson on Steinbeck’s use of figurative language. As we dissected the various meanings of character names in Of Mice and Men, I wrapped up the class, wanting students to come to the understanding that Steinbeck may have created these complex and analyzable character names to illustrate how multi-dimensional people are and that we can’t just reduce them to a single name meaning. The rest of the class was waffling, unsure of what to do with the information we had been discussing. Not surprisingly, Rachel raised her hand and eloquently but simply explained the exact point I had been lightly prodding at for the past hour. There were some nods of recognition in the class and I immediately reinforced Rachel’s comment with affirmative support for her perception. Still, she seemed unsure of herself.
I was simply confused at this point, how someone who was so bright could still doubt her answer in the face of such affirmation. Looking back over the feedback I’d given her, I realized it was fairly one-note—it was positive, of course, but somewhat repetitive and simply in this one format: written on assignments which students most likely don’t want to think about once they have received the paper with a grade on it. I immediately went to the technology lab and composed an email thanking Rachel for her comments in class that day.
As I said, this is not an overnight success story. I must note, however, that following my email (which she didn’t reply to), Rachel showed a marked decrease in self-deprecating verbal assessments of her ideas and work. She continued to enrich class discussion greatly when we discussed figurative language in further works. These statements of hers somehow seemed to resonate more with her peers once she stopped using negative qualifiers. They were followed more by nods of approval than by nervous snickers at her self-proclaimed “stupidity.”
After a three-week break from seeing my students, I was to return for a brief three days to conduct a workshop-type lesson on revision. I was concerned about interacting with my students again after such a hiatus; they had even begun having lessons again with my cooperating teacher. I arrived back with happy greetings—I think at least partially because my cooperating teacher began grading more harshly than I did. I was even greeted warmly by Rachel who, on her evaluation of me said I appeared engaged but unenthusiastic but that “it was okay, because that’s just what you’re like,” (I obviously had mixed feelings about this comment). But Rachel, who was previously a somewhat stand-offish girl, met me with a smile. While I didn’t feel like I’d changed the face of education or even the school or students, I finally started feeling satisfied with my student-teaching experience again.
* This is a pseudonym