small.town.girl

I’m wrapping up my first semester of online graduate work. After three semesters + one semester of student teaching, I will be certified to teach English in secondary schools. An additional two semesters will earn a master’s degree, but I’ve been told to hold off on that until I have a teaching job as starting a teacher off in the lower pay bracket appeals to schools more. My posting for this site has fallen behind because every week I’ve had to write two posts on Blackboard and then write five responses to classmates’ posts. I’m in the process of writing something for this site about my decision to teach, so expect that fairly soon. Until then, here is a post on motivation for my last Module in my Psychology of Teaching course.

Motivation is the driving force behind learning. Without motivated students, our efforts as teachers are essentially fruitless. So before we can create a constructivist class or establish expected behaviors among our students, it’s important that we understand motivation and how to encourage it in our classrooms. Various factors influence motivation. Learners’ curiosity, goals and self-efficacy as well as their expectancies and attributions play a role in how much (or how little) motivation they bring to class. As we strive to activate prior knowledge in our teaching, we must be aware that past learning experiences affect how students decide to engage in learning. “What happens as a result of past learning determines to a large degree whether students will engage in new learning at some time in the future” (Driscoll, p. 323).

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Sometimes I feel like my world is standing still while my friends’ worlds are whizzing by at record paces. People around me are getting married, getting jobs, having kids, moving to foreign countries–they’re having life experiences and I’m… not.

Other times, it feels like my life is rushed and filled to the point of bursting. I feel like I’m barely clinging on to my sanity. I see people living happy, carefree lives and I envy them.

Perhaps the real situation is that everyone is somewhere between these two places. No one is completely carefree. We all have bills and deadlines to meet. Marriage, children, jobs, houses–they just compound the stress of life itself. In some ways I’m lucky that I do not have those things to worry about. My employment situation is glorified hobo and the white picket fence is a long way off. I won’t have to worry about a mortgage or diapers or contracts for a couple of years. Still, I have to keep telling myself that I’m working toward something or the day to day breathing becomes too much.

My dear friend and “little brother” wrote on my Facebook today that I have to be passionate about teaching. I think I am, but am I passionate enough? I really look forward to working with a classroom of my own, but I’m nervous. I’m more nervous about completing the process and jumping through the hoops of student teaching and Praxis testing, but it’s still just another stressful element in this path I have chosen for myself. And I’m always questioning if it’s the right path. I’ve had a good break from subbing due to PSSA testing and conflicting schedules, and I can honestly say that I don’t miss it all that much. I’ve already entered the mindset for my summer job, which might just be a necessary coping mechanism.

I wonder if I’ve missed my calling. I wonder if this is what I’m supposed to do. Friends–well, more likely friends of friends–would turn to religion here and pray for answers or something. I could consult my tarot cards. I could put my faith in what my friends tell me. I could believe in myself for once.

I’ve kind of hit a wall. I guess that’s what April is, and possibly always has been, for me. I think I was usually fairly frustrated by this time of year in undergrad, and most certainly in 2008 and 2009, I was slowly going crazy by this time of year. I want to be passionate about my classes, about subbing, about life–but right now I just keep asking myself two questions:

Is this real life? and

Can we go to the beach yet?

I need this.

One of my graduate classes is about using technology in the classroom. One of our assignments is writing eJournals, where we are given prompts and required to write a reflection in response. Our first prompt asked us to consider technology in our own lives. “How has technology been used in your past experiences as a student or teacher? Did you find it effective? Reflect upon any field experience observations. Mention new website resources you have found. What did you learn from your fellow participants?” Here is my response:

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I am starting online graduate classes this week. I’m fairly excited about furthering my education, and in a way, I’m glad I’ve had a couple years of limbo to make me more motivated to do my best. The online format makes me a little bit nervous, but as I’m practically a character from The Matrix when it comes to my connectivity and love of the internet, I guess I can’t worry too much. The more I substitute teach, the more I long to someday have my own classroom. I look forward to observing teachers in my field (secondary English) and learning more about classroom management. I feel more confident that I’m making the right decision to pursue this career path, and it doesn’t hurt that I have some wonderful people rooting for me in my corner.

Additionally, I’m having some thoughts about attempting the city school again. They held an orientation for substitute teachers this week, and I attended because I didn’t have any subbing work. I feel like, in the present economy, more people are emergency certified to substitute and this increases the number of options for schools and decreases the number of calls for the sub. So I may have to start taking calls at the city school to stay afloat financially, as much as I don’t want to do it. They seemed genuinely grateful that anyone would show up to teach for their school district, and they acknowledged that they do indeed have some bad eggs. They also gave me what I wanted—a written manual outlining different procedures. While it isn’t quite a Bible of How to Act at the Urban School, it does have some helpful information. They also gave us some pointers that I would not necessarily have thought to employ in teaching (i.e., ignore the “bad” children), so maybe if I try to follow their ideas of how things work, I will have a more successful time of it.

Nothing compares to subbing at my favorite suburban schools, though. I did have a day at one this past week, and because it’s almost time for high school finals, the class was doing review packets. The fact that they remained quiet and legitimately did work per the teacher’s instructions enabled me to all but finish Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in a single day. I sincerely hope that I can work with them more throughout the rest of this school year.

I may post some of my posts from my various classes on here as I move through my semester with SJU. The Psychology of Teaching course seems like it will be really thought-provoking, and we have to write weekly message board posts for it. My fingers are crossed that things continue to go well for me in the education sector.

Life as a substitute teacher essentially involves a series of unpleasant experiences. Often, you’re offered a job by a 5:30 a.m. phone call. If you decide to take this job, you must then stumble out of bed to a school where you know virtually no one, and you must look professional upon arrival. Depending on who you are subbing for, you will find lesson plans. If you’re in for a high school teacher, odds are these lesson plans will be worksheets, quizzes or “continue working on such and such project.” If it’s middle school level, you may actually have to teach, or at least supervise them teaching themselves.

Depending on how the day goes, your afternoon might involve an energized trip to Wal-Mart or it may involve collapsing into bed and self-doubt. It depends on the school district, the students and your own resilience. Some days, I find myself doubting that this is the proper profession for me. I wonder if everything I’m doing is worth it, or I start looking at the want ads for “real jobs.” Other days, I’m fully confident that I’m making the right decision to continue my education and I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to gain varied classroom experiences.

There is one school district in particular that I dread seeing on my caller ID first thing in the morning. Continue reading

I became a substitute teacher somewhat out of necessity. In a faltering economy, I couldn’t afford to move to a new location to find a job, and my college degree and I were wasting away at a local convenience store making less than $8/hour. Teaching had been my original intention in college, but I’d been sidetracked by publications. I was lucky to know a few people who had gone through a training program to obtain emergency teaching certification, and they encouraged me to check it out. While the main point of the program is to staff the local intermediate unit, which assists local schools (especially with special education), many who take the training become day-to-day subs in mainstream schools. The training takes a mere three days and focuses on information that is more suited to the IU. Most of “what to do” was up to me to learn.

My first day was terrifying and exhilarating. I’d managed to find a better-paying seasonal job to round out my summer; my last day was Labor Day. I was looking forward to taking a few weeks to prepare for subbing by cleaning and organizing. Instead, Tuesday, September 8, I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to a phone call. I agreed before I really understood what I was doing. That was just the beginning, I suppose. In retrospect, the first day was fairly plain. It was 7th grade language arts, and one period I had a co-teacher who took the reigns. The regular teacher’s plans were superb–she’d thought of a lot in advance. The 7th graders were only in their 2nd week of junior high, so they had no idea that I was not at all aware of what I was doing. At the end of the day, I felt confident I’d made the right choice in pursuing teaching as a career.

When I look back, I’m very happy that I accepted that early phone call. It let me train myself and get my feet wet without falling on my face. I learned how to follow a lesson plan, how to relate to students, and even how to deal with trying to find a school I’ve never seen. Since then, I’ve had numerous other learning experiences with subbing. It’s trial and error, and what one can accomplish in a day depends on the type of students the school in question has. The demographics vary, even in my small county, and the students are sometimes less receptive to a substitute depending on their grade level and their level in the education system. I hope to detail some of what I’ve learned here, and to write about the experiences—good, bad and in between—so that I might learn more from them as I reexamine what I’ve done.