Basically what I do:
- Observing Reading & Writing 3 for the whole semester (8:30-10:10, for 10 weeks)
- Observing Grammar 2/Grammar 3, alternating about every two weeks (10:30-12:10, also 10 weeks)
- Email-tutoring one student
- Conversation-tutoring two students
- Intensive-GED-reading-tutoring one student
I don't get paid for any of it (except a nominal fee from my GED student), and out of the 20ish hours a week that all encompasses, I'm only guaranteed to be doing anything for 7. The rest is just sitting in a classroom, listening, taking notes, doodling, and occasionally walking around the room and helping students with independent exercises.
But recently, the Grammar 2 professor gave me one of the greatest gifts I've received yet, and offered to let me review the class' latest test with them AND teach a whole hour and forty minute class on comparative adjectives.
The class will come next month. The test review was Thursday. And oh... friends, this is hard work.
I've known since about sixth grade that I probably shouldn't be a teacher. Back then I thought it was because I understood things too easily, and I would expect my students to be as brilliant as I am (and that expectation would 99% of the time be false). Yes, I was quite a wonderful sixth grader. And humble, too.
Anyway. In recent years, I've stuck to my conviction that I shouldn't be a teacher, but for slightly less annoying reasons--mostly just because I don't know if I'm gifted that way. I think education is one of the most important structures in society, and it bothers me a lot when people say things like, 'Oh, I don't know what I want to do with this degree in [ ]. I'll probably just end up teaching it to high schoolers.'
Anyway. In recent years, I've stuck to my conviction that I shouldn't be a teacher, but for slightly less annoying reasons--mostly just because I don't know if I'm gifted that way. I think education is one of the most important structures in society, and it bothers me a lot when people say things like, 'Oh, I don't know what I want to do with this degree in [ ]. I'll probably just end up teaching it to high schoolers.'
Just because you know something doesn't mean you can or should teach it.
And that is being reinforced quite thoroughly into my head this summer. Do I know English? You bet. Can I work with one student to make them understand it? Sure. Can I teach it to a class? Questionable.
It's funny... I think I'd take teaching small groups of Catholic high schoolers about the Sacraments (as I did last summer) over teaching classes of international adults about English (as I am doing this summer). In the first case, I (being Protestant) knew less than my students did, but I had a different perspective, a different angle... and some real humility to boot. Here, I know a lot more than they do. I ought to. I'm a native speaker. And there is only one possible perspective, one possible angle. I have it; they don't. But they need to, and I need to get them there. And somehow manage to stay humble.
It doesn't just have to do with right and wrong answers. Teaching is about getting the students to think in a way they don't naturally think. Once you get them started in the right place and moving in the right direction, the answers will come. And, again: this is hard work.
And it makes me wonder... is teaching just a gift you have? Or, like theology or the English language, is it the sort of thing that I could arrive at just by starting in the right place and moving in the right direction, with a little guidance from somebody who knows what they're doing?
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