One January afternoon, I sat at the back of my own classroom trying to be invisible while my student-teacher, Mollie, led a vocabulary lesson. 鈥淪ydney,鈥� a student whispered. 鈥淐an I go to the bathroom?鈥� (Students call teachers by their first names at our school; it鈥檚 a way we try to build a culture of shared power and respect.)
鈥淎sk Mollie,鈥� I replied quietly. 鈥淪he鈥檚 in charge.鈥�
鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 want to interrupt,鈥� she said. I smiled. My student-teacher had, despite quite a bit of boundary-testing from students, nurtured and maintained an orderly classroom where students came to learn.
Six weeks earlier, when Mollie took over my 9th grade humanities class, she鈥檇 stood shakily at the front of the classroom, apologetic about asking students to learn. She fretted over discipline and forgot to take attendance. She reminded me of me when I first started out.
The previous August, facing the looming specter of my fifth year as a full-time teacher, I鈥檇 been worried. A lot of teachers fall victim to burnout at the five-year mark, shuffling around spouting cynical adages at idealistic first-year teachers before abandoning the field. Four years at my school had convinced me that I wanted to keep teaching, but I felt burnout creeping in. I worked every weekend and felt tired all the time. I cried during meetings with my principal. I convinced myself I was the worst teacher alive, doing irreparable damage to young brains. I needed a break before teaching broke me.
I decided that mentoring a student-teacher was a great plan for taking the pressure off. 鈥淚鈥檓 going to be able to relax!鈥� I explained to my mom. 鈥淎nd I鈥檒l have another set of hands in the classroom.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 a lot of work,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檒l make you busier.鈥�
I shrugged off her warning, imagining myself calm, happy, and wise.
Needless to say, I鈥檝e realized that having a student-teacher is a lot of work, but it鈥檚 a refreshing and different kind of work. Working with Mollie helped me hold a mirror up to my own growth and gave me energy to keep getting better at my job.
Reflective Practice
At the beginning of the year, Mollie and I set up a weekly schedule: one meeting where I set the agenda and one where she did. Mollie鈥檚 meeting agendas were fraught with panic: piles of grading, kids鈥� confusion, her own fatigue.
I didn鈥檛 want my meetings to focus on what was going wrong, so instead I used them to ask Mollie to reflect more broadly on her practice. 鈥淲hose teaching style do you admire?鈥� I asked. 鈥淲hat are your goals as an educator?鈥� I pushed her to acknowledge small successes and analyze how other teachers tackled the issues she faced. These conversations told me how Mollie saw herself when she wasn鈥檛 mid-crisis. They helped her acknowledge what she was learning, how she was growing, and where she鈥檇 like to go.
Hearing Mollie鈥檚 reflections made me reflect on my own growth. Five years before Mollie walked into my classroom, I鈥檇 struggled with behavior management, too. Student actions sent me into emotional tailspins. At the time, my own mentor had showed me that their choices were usually not about me at all. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 really going on with that kid?鈥� she鈥檇 ask. 鈥淲hat is he trying to get from you, and why does he need that?鈥� These conversations were revolutionary for me. I worked to remain emotionally detached from behavioral problems. This is not about me became my mantra.
Now, Mollie struggled to maintain control of an unruly classroom and asked me, 鈥淲hy are they doing this? I just want to teach them!鈥�
鈥淩emember,鈥� I said, 鈥渢his is not about you.鈥� We had a long talk about students鈥� motives and techniques for addressing their behavior. It was as if I were sitting across from my younger self, reassuring her: You can do this. Reflection time is hard to carve out of a full teaching schedule. It鈥檚 also an invaluable tool for gaining perspective. Our talks forced Mollie to think about more than her failures and to see teaching as an ongoing learning process, and they showed me how far I鈥檇 come.
Learning by Mentoring
But that year wasn鈥檛 all about congratulating myself on how much I鈥檇 learned. While Mollie battled through her first year, I, too, had to learn new skills. As student-teacher, Mollie was also my special education inclusion associate, charged with ensuring that we met the needs of students with individualized education plans. She pulled students out for one-on-one reviews, helped me think through differentiated lessons, and reported students鈥� progress on IEP goals back to parents each trimester. When Mollie took charge of the class, we switched jobs. Now, as the inclusion associate, I saw what creating an inclusive classroom entailed. I recorded audiobooks, modified assignments, and untangled misconceptions. I had more time to work closely with individual students, and was then able to design more effective interventions. Not being the primary disciplinarian helped me see that certain disruptive students were just overwhelmed by the material.
As the inclusion associate, I also spent a lot of time unsure of Mollie鈥檚 expectations for me. Having not thought about what role she wanted me to play, she often told me to 鈥渏ust jump in whenever kids need help.鈥� I stood in the back of the room feeling useless and frustrated. But then it clicked: Mollie had learned this from me. I鈥檇 taken my inclusion associates for granted, letting them languish in the back of the classroom, devaluing their particular expertise. I鈥檇 failed to thoughtfully write them into my plans. In the process, I had denied myself a valuable co-teacher.
Ultimately, that is the greatest lesson I learned during my year with Mollie: Mentor teacher and student-teacher should learn and teach together. Yes, the official paperwork said that I was to guide her through the perilous world of teaching: I would 鈥渢each her how to teach.鈥� Aside from that being a ridiculously tall order for one person (and one year), it鈥檚 one-sided. Mollie taught me so much. She is now an accomplished teacher in her own classroom, and I am working with my third student-teacher in as many years.
The lessons I learned working with Mollie have made me a more effective mentor teacher. I now begin each year by working through a sample lesson plan with my student-teacher, discussing our respective roles at each point in the lesson. For the first few weeks, I ask my student-teacher to annotate a copy of the lesson plan with reminders about what he or she should do during each activity. We think through different accommodations that will help students access the material, modify reading assignments together to make our thought processes explicit to one another, observe each other teach, and debrief on what we see.
Having had time to evaluate my own practice, I now strive to make my classroom a site of learning, growth, and reflection鈥攏ot just for my students, and not just for my student-teacher, but for myself as well. My mom was right. Having a student-teacher is a lot of work. But it is good work, and it energizes me. It reminds me of the excitement and optimism that led me into teaching, and, now that I鈥檝e passed that five-year mark, it keeps pushing me toward new milestones.
