Mentorship

I think that the universities in my area that have teacher education programs hate me.

Every year I sign up for a student teacher. Every year neither university that I apply to sends me one. Why?

Not only that, but on occasion, the universities send out pleas in September and February for students that haven't been placed. I answer those. I get no response. I feel like I'm being chosen last in Gym class.

I truly believe in mentoring a student teacher. After all, someone volunteered to take me on at one point. Also, I enjoy the discussions and I learn a lot from all the other S.T.s in my department. I look forward to adding new "spice" to my lesson plans, too. I hear a lot from other teachers that they would never take one on, and honestly I don't get that. What better opportunity to give something back, all the while ensuring that great new teachers are developed. I don't get it.

The only time I ever did get a S.T. she was absolutely loopy! I am not kidding. She would break out in to song in the middle of class (no, not related to the lesson), discuss her divorce in front of the students, and would break in to tears when I would say something so minute like; "Maybe next time you should make sure you have a pen with you so that you can take attendance accurately."

The kicker, the absolute kicker was when she showed up later for school one day. One of her fellow S.T.s asked her why she came in late (I hadn't gotten to her at this point) . She replied, "Well, I started masturbating and I just couldn't stop!". Honestly.

I must have done something in a past life to piss the Teacher Education teachers off!

This year I applied and did not get one, but a colleague of mine did not want to give up one of her classes. So, I jumped on it and said that he could take on one of mine. Fine, great, it was looking up for me!

Until the e-mail. Over March Break when I was in Greece, we received an email stating that said S.T. had a crisis at home and needed to deal with it. He would be back the following week. I'm right away thinking, wow, major crisis, and feeling really bad for him. It was decided that he would drop a course so that he could deal with the issues and still keep his sanity. Guess whose course he dropped? Mine.

I. give. up.

Oh and BTW the crisis really wasn't all that big. No worse than what many other people have gone through in their lives. Maybe I am just being bitter, but in order to deal with the pressures of a first-year teacher, you gotta be tough!