As with most things in life, there is usually a calm before the storm... This was definitely the case when comparing my first and second days at Spiva. The lessons were completely the same, the size of the classes were almost the same as the day before, we even had the exact same original group of people working!! While I was not surprised at the energy levels of the kids, the real shock came in the form of this days teachers!! In all of my years of college, I had been told horror stories about students who behaved badly and was coached over-and-over on how to handle situations like that, but NOTHING had prepared me for a teacher behaving in an extremely horrible manner! But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. I was initially really excited for this day because two other students from my university AND my art education instructor were coming to volunteer that day as well. |
Since they were people I felt familiar with, any anxiety I had had over heading all the lessons that day was pretty much gone. While my art ed teacher stayed downstairs to help in the gallery, one of the students form my school came up to help me and Karalee in the classroom. Karalee turned the lesson over to me, and assisted my fellow university-an in the secret room.
The first session went as smoothly as the day before, so I was all content thinking it would be another great day... Then, the second lesson hit.... The teacher I encountered here taught me something very valuable. That I NEVER wanted to be that kind of teacher! From the minute she stepped in the room, she would repeat almost everything I said the way she wanted it said, was constantly interrupting me to add her two-cents on how they do it in her classroom, and treated all the students in the room like they were not intelligent enough to do the project. I WAS HORRIFIED! On numerous occasions she would try to take over the lesson and teach in the way she wanted to. As she felt using the pencils were a waste of time and "prevented" her students from being able to finish their jars, she walked around to every table taking them right out of their hands and sat the black crayons down infront of them. Her explanation was the lesson had "too many steps for them to get." At one point, a student asked me if she could use her pencil on just one detailed part she was afraid she would mess up. I told her she could if she hurried. Directly after, the teacher walked over, grabbed the pencil from her, threw it my direction, grabbed the crayon, slammed in down inform of her, and said, "I TOLD YOU NO PENCIL!!!"
In truth, the students were able to get more accomplished by skipping the pencil portion, but that also left them with more down time. One of the students began speaking to me about my studies at Pitt State and informed me she too wanted to be a teacher. I asked her what she wanted to teach, and she replied, "Elementary because I want to teach all subjects." Enter awful teacher.... With no prompting she told my innocent THIRD-GRADE student not to teach anything under 5th grade because they were all horrible. She even used really negative sounds to make every grade sound worse and worse as she went down the list. As I was the only Spiva teacher in the class at the time, I was so lost on what to do that I just stared at her rather dumbfounded. Let me just say, I was so grateful when that lesson ended and that teacher left!
The first session went as smoothly as the day before, so I was all content thinking it would be another great day... Then, the second lesson hit.... The teacher I encountered here taught me something very valuable. That I NEVER wanted to be that kind of teacher! From the minute she stepped in the room, she would repeat almost everything I said the way she wanted it said, was constantly interrupting me to add her two-cents on how they do it in her classroom, and treated all the students in the room like they were not intelligent enough to do the project. I WAS HORRIFIED! On numerous occasions she would try to take over the lesson and teach in the way she wanted to. As she felt using the pencils were a waste of time and "prevented" her students from being able to finish their jars, she walked around to every table taking them right out of their hands and sat the black crayons down infront of them. Her explanation was the lesson had "too many steps for them to get." At one point, a student asked me if she could use her pencil on just one detailed part she was afraid she would mess up. I told her she could if she hurried. Directly after, the teacher walked over, grabbed the pencil from her, threw it my direction, grabbed the crayon, slammed in down inform of her, and said, "I TOLD YOU NO PENCIL!!!"
In truth, the students were able to get more accomplished by skipping the pencil portion, but that also left them with more down time. One of the students began speaking to me about my studies at Pitt State and informed me she too wanted to be a teacher. I asked her what she wanted to teach, and she replied, "Elementary because I want to teach all subjects." Enter awful teacher.... With no prompting she told my innocent THIRD-GRADE student not to teach anything under 5th grade because they were all horrible. She even used really negative sounds to make every grade sound worse and worse as she went down the list. As I was the only Spiva teacher in the class at the time, I was so lost on what to do that I just stared at her rather dumbfounded. Let me just say, I was so grateful when that lesson ended and that teacher left!