Before I address the subject of this post, I need to give a bit of context. I am working on getting my teaching degree. Last school year, I was a long-term substitute teacher at a high school with the Special Education department and I was also a co-teacher. This current school year, the district opened it up to hire people, like me, that were still working on getting their teaching degree but not quite had gotten it yet.
Currently, I am an elementary teacher at a school that has A LOT of growing to do. I teach fifth grade & have amazing support from my fellow teachers. There are also a good amount of new teachers & I have amazing support from them as well.
On Thursday, I have a walk-through with my RLA (English-based subject) coach, as well as my admin and some people from the district to see how I handle teaching & whatnot. My students did exactly what they needed to & did not misbehave at all. I was shocked & thankful for their behavior. On Friday, my RLA coach asked me & the dual language (Spanish/English) teacher to meet during our conference time since she had a walk-through as well to go over a few things & provide feedback. My RLA coach also mentioned that it wouldn’t be long, which it ended up being almost an hour long. We discussed some general stuff & then we went into the main topic.
The feedback that I received was that I didn’t address issues within the classroom correctly, I have expectations for my students like I did for my high school students last year, I am too harsh, I don’t build relationships with my students and I need to pull back on some things during instructional time. One thing that I know about myself is that I know that I am connecting with kids, here’s an example: we have the local fair going on & one of my student’s families has a food truck. She found out that I love horchata, which is a rice milk-based drink & it is DELICIOUS! She brought me a BIG container of it on Friday with a huge smile on her face.
I am just hurt. I feel like a terrible teacher now. I feel like I cannot do anything right. I keep thinking about a comment someone made to me at high school, “Are you sure you are meant to be in the education field?” I am really questioning that now. I feel so defeated right now. I don’t want to go to work tomorrow. I am just thankful that I have next Monday off & I am planning on taking this Friday off, so I can have a four-day weekend. I am emotionally & physically exhausted.
I’m so sorry that you had to go thru that, it wasn’t fair at all and a pretty lousy thing to do by your RLA who didn’t support you the way they should have in the first place. I’m glad that your fellow teachers are supportive, that’s great.
You know that you’re making connections with your kids, it’s a shame your RLA hasn’t really been paying attention to see that.
You know, I wouldn’t question my choice of career on one person’s ignorant review of you. I know that it’s hard not to be upset about it, but take into consideration how little support you got from them and how THEY failed to do THEIR job.
I bet you are a wonderful teacher because I’ve seen awesome you are here.
Hi Fox,
i feel sorry for you, for going through that.
Maybe listen to the feedback of your students and you will see how you are really doing.
This guy is making choices from a feedback from others and 2 days where he is being around.
Youre students are there the whole year. Also your colleagues, when they support you like you say
you are doing a great job.
From what i have experienced about you, i would have loved to have a teacher like you. I bet your students
have fun in class with you too, not only are being teached well.
You go through things like this, and also you have attended to SWAT on Saturday to support others. This
says a lot about you. If i had a hat on now, i would salute to you.
You are an awesome person and you deserve all the good in this world. Now pour a glass of this milk
based thing you like to drink and smile. We love you and we care about you.
Thank you for being here, you have a great heart. Feel hugged
Stinky greetings
Education administrators always sound like the baddies in a Disney movie, with the best teachers with all the degrees feeling nervous and unsure!
It’s also a case of those “those who don’t teach, administrate”
Teaching is hard, and none of my teaching staff friends has ever come away from an admin meeting smiling or feeling good about themselves or confident. We recently changed the requirements for our teachers here, and so many persons with degrees had to go back to school to retrain in these “new” style of teaching and it was hard, it was a lot of work.
It’s sort of like the guys who write the Terms and Conditions, and insist that you must read through it before you can click “accept”. It’s tedious, boring, and make you feel a bit overwhelmed or stupid at some of the technical language, but after you click accept, you will forget the incident, and what you would gained from it is an appreciation of a non-teaching technical visit, that doesn’t really relate to what you on a daily basis but operates more on the framework of what you do.
I have faith in you, friend. The next time someone asks you, “Are you sure you are meant to be in the education field?”, you will be so sure in yourself you will be able to laugh and say, “Yes I am, and I have the results to prove it”.
I think that is a universal question they ask, designed to bring out the greatest insecurities you have as teaching staff. You fell into that linguistic trap. You’ll be better aware of it next time. Keep shining Starfox!
(ps the analogies were all over the place here, hopefully you got the gist of them LOL)
