Even though his university supervisor had emailed both him and me to say, “I’ve encouraged A– to contact you about when and where to meet you,” I didn’t hear a peep from my week-long-practicum student teacher until he showed up Monday morning–so I wasn’t too impressed even before meeting him.
And it slid from there.
“Here I am!” he said, striding into my room just five minutes before students would start to stream in. “I’m here, right on time. Well, one minute late, because I got stuck behind a school bus. Where is my seat?”
I settled him in at a computer desk in the back of the room. Actually, I meant for him to use a chair at the computer desk but to face forward, with the rest of the class, instead of staring the back wall, but he took out a pencil and a notebook and started writing. And writing.
(His supervising professor later told me he’d written six pages, once typed, on that first day. Perhaps it was on Tuesday that he asked me something like, “What time exactly was the tornado drill? From 8:26-8:43?”)
After my first class on Monday, at the start of planning period, A– brought his folder to my desk, pulled up another chair beside me, and said, “Okay, so here’s the deal. This is my list of things I need to do. It says they’re suggested activities, which means they’re required, and so I’m going to do them all. I’ll need to go talk to a guidance counselor about bullying, eat lunch in the cafeteria, observe another class for a whole class period. Oh, and I need to teach a twenty-minute lesson, and–“
“A–,” I interrupted, “I’m sure I’ll have time to talk through this with you in just a bit. However, at the moment I’m a bit behind in planning for my next period class, and I’d like to get that done first.”
“Oooh, of course!” he said with accommodating surprise. “Of course!” He noted that in his notebook.
When I’d finished my immediate to-do list, I asked him how he was fortunate enough to fulfill his practicum in one full week in May, after the university was out for the semester. Usually students in his position just visit a class for a couple hours each week during the term; he and a few others were apparently taking a little May term.
“There was a problem with the computers at my college and I was put out of the education degree program,” he said. “Now I have to work really hard to show that I’m serious so they’ll let me back in.”
And work hard he did, over the course of the week. His note taking put him in serious cahoots with my pencil sharpener, which he told me he’d figured out how to use so it wouldn’t eat his pencil; he walked with me to the office to submit papers for photocopying; he read to students so speedily he stumbled over words and forgot them in the dust; he classified “chewy” under the “taste” sensory details for the food essay brainstorming activity.
When I introduced the food essay concept to him (my students each write an essay about a meaningful food, and then we have a class potluck), he said, “That is an excellent idea. Perfect. Because food these days is a really big thing for kids. Really big. It has been for quite a while, too. I mean, for a really long time.”
On Tuesday he was four and a half minutes late, which I know only because his first words of the day prompted me to look at the clock: “Just so you know, I was on time,” he said. “But I had to use the bathroom.”
On Wednesday, his professor and the education department chair dropped by unannounced at the beginning of my planning period. We were wrapping up details from first period when they slipped into the classroom. A– had planned to visit another class for the period, so he was gathering up his materials to head out.
“Hello,” I greeted the women. “Welcome! Thanks for coming by.”
They shook my hand; A– had every appearance of walking out without having hardly acknowledged them.
“A–, we came to meet with you and Mr. Jacobs,” one said to him. I invited them to be seated.
“Oh. Uh, actually, I was just going to go observe Band,” A– said.
“Well, you can go to that shortly,” his professor said, and I added, “A–, you can sit here.”
“I was hoping to stop by your office and see you this afternoon,” A– said, “after school is out for the day. I’ll just come by your office.”
The professor became short: “I won’t be there. I won’t be available. But we are available now, and that’s why we’re here.”
“Oh, of course!” he exclaimed, and sat down.
When his professors had explained to him that the field notes didn’t have to be so detailed, that the form for the notes specifies a few simple areas to note, and finally dismissed him–he was obviously itching to be on his way–they thanked me for agreeing to host A–.
“We’re concerned about him,” they said.
We chatted.
Later in the week A– told me, “I have a confidence problem, in that I’m maybe too upbeat and positive.”
“It’s good not to beat yourself up,” I told him, “but self reflection and self criticism that is constructive is really important”–and, as I ultimately noted on his evaluation, totally lacking in him.
In fact, I intentionally planned to leave myself a bit of post-A– time in order to think through my written feedback and relieve myself of the pressures of face-to-face honesty with someone in denial, but invited him to tell me how he thought he’d done throughout the week. We looked over the evaluation form; in each of the areas, he felt, he merited ratings of “adequate” or “exemplary.”
“I definitely dress professionally,” he said, stroking his tie. “It makes me look so much more professional. But I don’t know–being on such good terms with [a particular student who had heartily welcomed him] might not be professional, so I might only be ‘adequate’ there.”
It took me a thoughtful while, but a few days later I completed my evaluation of A– by noting specific observations and avoiding value judgments. It was difficult to pinpoint the big picture; small actions on his part were, I hoped, would be more helpful to his supervisors, who, frankly, had seemed eager for evidence against him in order to document reason to dismiss him from their program.
“I don’t know if I told you,” he said near the end of our time together, “about my first placement, which is why I had to do this one.”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“My practicum supervising teacher was known for wanting to squelch new talent,” he said. “Do you think I’ll get a B? I really want a B in this class.”
Thankfully I don’t need to grade him. However, my mother-in-law’s advice a few years ago–I’d received a reference request from the prospective employer of a former student teacher who had impressed me not at all–will still rule the day: “Remember the children,” she said. “Do it for them.”
In that case, as I will again, I advised against hiring.