Re: Student Teachers

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I have an ST right now, and it was not something I asked to do. My principal
is new to the district. She wants to make a good impression, so she told the
DO she would take an ST. I am the lead at my grade level. My principal
called me while I was preparing for parents to enter my room at Back to School
night. She said I was getting a student teacher the following week, gave me
the advisor's phone number, told me to set up a time to meet the ST, and for
me to tell my parents about it when they came that night. I put my prepared
presentation away, reviewed the incumbent's school site, and explained how
student teaching works when my new parents entered the room. They were not
thrilled about having an ST. My neighborhood is on the high end, our school
scores are in the upper 900's, and the parents' immediately expressed concern
about whether or not their children would receive a quality education from a
highly qualified instructor. I dealt with the situation.

A week later when I met the ST, the parental angst had settled. I had dealt
with email after email and numerous parent visits. The ST and I went through
the curriculum, and it became immediately obvious that the ST did not have a
solid background in math and science. The ST had also never had a chance to
see or handle a TE, since the coursework was all online for the ST. I had to
do a basic inservice for the ST for all of the curricular materials I use in
each content area (5th).

The expectations of the incumbent's school are that by the end of the 40 day
teaching assignment, the ST will be ready to solo for two weeks' worth of
instruction. That meant training the ST in all of the school procedures,
classroom procedures, school policies, paperwork, interventions, GL meetings,
staff meetings, grading policies, instructional strategies (we are a DI
school), software tool management backends (AR, pearsonsuccessnet, gradebook,
AM, Google calendar for homework, edtek, and student lab applications). It
meant teaching the ST how to run lit circles, teach novel units, analyze
literature, create foldables, manage computer projects, teach genre writing,
and a myriad of other things I use. The ST had to learn all of this, or my
very particular parents would have gone to the board about the ST.

We're in the last two days of coaching before the ST solos. The parents are
calm, the kids are learning, the ST is ready to fly all day alone, and I am
beat. The reason many CT's don't do all of this is that it is a huge drain on
the time of the CT, and the CT has to do things like turn a week long math
inservice into bite sized pieces the ST can digest quickly and then apply.
Many ST's have trouble with 5th grade math (prealgebra and geometry in
particular) and science (periodic table, basic chemistry, atomic structure,
etc.). It means the CT has to teach the ST about the subject matter itself.

Many CT's opt instead to use the ST as a personal assistant, because it is
really hard work to actually mentor. I hope that sheds some light on things.

BTW, my ST's wife is also an ST at this time. Her CT is treating her as an
assistant. My ST is getting to see both sides of the coin first hand.  

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