Two weeks ago I went to the Grape with my housemates for the Spam Jam Date Auction. With my eyelids drooping, I stayed until 11:30 p.m. so that I could bid on my friend Kurt, then I promptly left. On my way out, I raised my empty glass to the few other lost souls in the bar with the same weary expression on their face. The glazed-over eyes with dark circles, the look of guilt and regret, the thoughts visibly racing across their minds. This is second semester of our senior year! We should be living at the Grape! So why the few solemn faces amid a sea of pre-graduation giddiness? We are student teachers. And on a Thursday night when all of our friends celebrate having the next day to sleep in and relax, those of us at the Grape that night dreaded waking up at 5:30 the next morning, forced to be awake, alert, and most importantly – able to teach.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Oh, student teachers must have it so easy this semester. Home every day by three, and two school vacations!” Oh, ye of little knowledge. The truth of the matter is, while we are finished by 3 p.m., that does not mean we have no work to do that night, planning for the next few days (we also go to bed by 11:30 – and that’s pushing it). And yes, we do get February and April school vacations, but we forfeit our last Spring Break. Nursing majors have at least had some practice in the past couple of years at getting up before dawn for clinicals, but the harsh reality set in for me when I came back to school to wake up every day before the sun, knowing I would continue with this routine until the end of the semester.
Don’t get me wrong – I knew what I was getting into. Sophomore year I declared the secondary education minor (which is essentially a double major because we take 10 classes). I have taken educational psychology, philosophy of education, technology in the classroom, and even a course on reading. Some courses dragged, and because I could not implement the lessons I was learning, I often felt frustrated. But in crossing the threshold of Fairfield Ludlowe High School one month ago, all the information I had stored from my education classes flooded back to me from some locked custodian’s closet in my brain. You learn all about different techniques in classroom management, the levels of learning teenagers go through, and the emotional stress of a student, but the moment a spitball hits the back of your shirt, you throw those lessons out the window.
I am currently teaching one freshman class, and will pick up three sophomore classes in the next few weeks. Freshmen are funny. You remember, of course. We all thought high school was going to be the set of the teen movie we were destined to star in. We would meet the hot upperclassman who would eventually fall for our quirky charm, and our cool friends from across the social clique spectrum would teach us life lessons. There were 8,546 more important things than Shakespeare and standardized tests, and that new student teacher who all of a sudden took over for your favorite teacher? You had no idea where she or he came from, but you were going to make it your job to destroy their self-esteem.
Okay, so not all the kids are that bad. A student did ask me on my first day of observation if I was the new student, despite my heels and “grown up” clothes. I have not been asked for a hall pass yet, but after telling students fighting in the hallway to quiet down, I heard the distinct whisper of “Was that a teacher, or a kid”? My freshmen have just started to get the picture that I do know more than they do, and when I finish a really good class, some stay after class to ask me questions. That gratitude (or sucking up, I haven’t figured it out yet) reinforces the reason why I am fine with getting up every morning before dawn.
Last Friday was FLHS’s monthly staff happy hour, held at the Skybox. I hesitated, but decided to stop by at least for little while. As I walked in, I saw my “co-workers” – middle-aged women with the shirts tucked into their black jeans, and the guys in their late 30s doing victory dances after winning a game of pool. On the far side of the bar, I saw a growing group of Fairfield seniors, evidently home from internships and done with classes for the day, celebrating the weekend ahead. I froze. I am caught in the middle of adulthood and the end of my carefree college years. I waved to the FU kids I recognized, shot some pool with Steve and Glen, shook my head and smiled. T.S. Eliot said that April is the cruelest month? We’ll see about that.
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