.png)
Author Information
Post Student Teaching Musings
After several months absence to student teach and hunt down substitute teaching jobs I find myself updating my blog when I should be working on my comprehensive exit examination for my graduate school.
I've had a lot of time to reflect on my student teaching experience and one of the best outcomes is that I really enjoyed the experience. I had feared throughout my pre-service experience that I would get into the classroom and find that I wasn't really into it. Fortunately, I had a lot of fun and I hope the kids did too. Now I get to be an unemployed social studies teacher.
One of the most interesting aspects was how mindful my cooperating teacher is of the role of power in the classroom. He made sure that I marked the first test so the students would understand that I "had the power". Critical Pedagogy often asks us to think about power in critical ways. I haven't met many teachers that were so upfront about the nature of power in their classroom.
As a student teacher, you have to be able to square yourself with the fact that you are borrowing someone else’s classroom and for a limited time at that. As a graduate student, my student teaching experience was limited to about 50 days in the classroom. How, for instance, do we create classrooms that begin with more teacher centered power at the beginning of the year and end with classrooms that are true communities with power shared amongst community members?
In many ways our teacher training programs are underequipped to create the strong teachers that we need in our communities. I have enjoyed the opportunity to progress in my teacher education program with individuals who are coming with backgrounds in business. These people know that most companies spend significant resources in preparing entry-level employees to assume greater roles in their business. My capitalist girlfriend, for instance, spent at least a year being introduced to the role of underwriter at her insurance company.
As a former merchant mariner I understand that deck and engine officers spend a significant amount of time working on ships as part of their university experience. Once these men and women receive their licenses they begin to accrue experience so they may advance in their profession--they do not immediately become ship captains.
Teachers, however, do not enjoy the opportunity to practice their skills as a means of acquiring competency gradually. "Here is the book, go teach," seems to be the order of the day. You are immediately promoted to ship captain with all the legal liability that go with it. You immediately gain 90+ clients with individual needs that require your attention every day.
For those aspiring to shape their practice through critical pedagogy the road seems even more difficult. We have, after all, moved toward a model of banking education rather than away from it. Were can one find the necessary allies in their own education community to renew the project of emancipatory education year after year? Developing a practice rooted in critical pedagogy requires a level of mentorship, support, and development that may not exist in the schools we gain employment in.
How many young teachers, I wonder, became objects to be transformed rather than agents of change?
- Dave Desrosiers's blog
- Login or register to post comments
-
Printer-friendly version- Send to friend
- Topic Tags:
Comments
I've often asked myself the same questions!
Have you come up with any answers?
Lack of freedom as a student teacher
Great post Dave,
Having been a student teacher previously during my undergrad teaching degree and now as a PhD student charged with the task of assessing student teachers on their rounds as part of my tutoring role at the university, I can concur with your comments above.
I think another aspect of pressure on student teachers is the fact that they are being assessed. In Australia in most universities the school teacher performs this assessment, rather than the university. While this is a good idea as the teachers have the chance to see the growth in student teachers over the time of the placement, it puts pressure on student teachers to teach in ways that suit the mentor teacher. Often mentor teachers pressure student teachers to teach like they do, especially when student teachers, as Dave noted, you are borrowing someone else's classroom where to a large degree you have to follow the curriculum or syllabus already in place. The chance to teach critical pedagogy is risky to say the least when a grading by the teacher hinges on their acceptance of critical pedagogy as an appropriate and legitimate teaching method.
Critical pedagogy is not something you can just throw at students when they haven't been exposed to it previously. It is something that needs to be introduced gradually, so on teaching rounds opportunities to trial critical pedagogy in the classroom may be limited.
So what is the answer? I would suggest that student teachers interested in critical pedagogy start small, incorporate some critical aspect to the topic or lesson, guage student engagement and understandings, and proceed further subject to their own confidence, teacher feedback, and student needs and feedback. Teaching is to a large degree about learning to be confident in the classroom, so pacing the introduction of critical pedagogy to your teaching repertoire subject to your growing confidence as a teacher may be the best way to ensure it becomes a life-long pursuit, rather than something tried a couple of times and dismissed as too hard.
Young teachers!
Excellent post!
As Tim Fish mentioned becoming a confident critical pedagogue is a life-long pursuit. We have to be aware not to be changed by a vision we don't believe in. I used to write logs everyday after school to remind myself what I thought was best for my pupils. As a young teacher, I believe that it is a challenge for new teachers not to be transformed but rather be agents of change.