Amy Estanislao is a teacher in Chicago Public Schools. She student taught with me in the Spring of 2014 and graduated in May 2015 with a certificate to teach 6-12 from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
This is post three of six in a series about student teaching, mentoring, and how we are always becoming teachers: “The Coaching Tree for Teachers.” In this post, Amy reflects on our time working together, what she is discovering about teaching after a few years in the classroom, and how she might support her future student teachers.
1) What ideas, beliefs, lessons did you take away from our time together that seem helpful in your own teaching now?
One of the main beliefs that I took away from our time together is keeping humanity in the forefront of my practice. When planning units, lessons, activities, and assignments, I often think about the desired outcome. Is this about just transmitting knowledge and skills or is this something that is going to make them a better human being? Another belief that I took away from student teaching is fair grading and assessment practices. I constantly try to assess my students on what they can do through goals/skills/standards in hopes of avoiding penalizing them for not completing the assignment or homework. One of the main strategies of sorts that I still use today is helping my students to discover the information on their own. You always instilled the power of uncovering while teaching students. I also have the students create all graphic organizers in their notebook instead of handing them out. I remember you always telling me, “why give them this when they can create it on their own?” There are so many more things that I learned from you to list, but these are the main ones.
2) What are you struggling with or working through now and is there something we could have done during student teaching to help?
I think my main struggle now is falling into the habits of “traditional” teaching. I’m not sure this is the best phrase, but I can’t think of another way to explain it. I feel like this results from two things: high-stakes assessments and student behavior. There is so much pressure put on teachers to improve test scores that administration mandates test prep and the use of online programs. I find it hard to balance this with my desire for humane teaching practices. Furthermore, student behavior often results in me reverting back to traditional worksheets and teacher-centered lessons to manage the classroom. This has been the case in only one class each year the past three years, but it is something that hurts me. Much of my colleagues’ advice is to push play on the audio and give worksheets because you can’t teach in classes like that. Yes, the students are quiet and the majority of them are focused when I do this; however, I am left feeling that I am doing them a disservice. The next day, I try to do a more interactive and student-centered lesson and it is complete chaos. This is something that bothers me a lot, but I feel at a loss for what to do. I have yet to find a like-minded teacher at my school to get advice from or even learn from. The strategies we talked about for seeking help have not been a success. I’m not sure that there was anything we could have done during student teaching that could have helped more. Ross Greene’s “plan A, B, and C” conversations are something I think about and use. However, I wonder if taking a classroom management course during my undergrad program would have been helpful in giving me some tools or a foundation for managing my classroom.
3) When you are ready for a student teacher, what do you think you can most help with and what do you think new teachers just have to figure out on their own?
When I have the opportunity to have a student teacher, I hope that I can help them in a similar way you helped me. I hope to share with them the importance of looking at our students as human beings and helping them to become…that they are always becoming. I want my student teacher to know that if you are constantly trying to be fair and keep humanity as the focus of your teaching, then you are on the right track. I hope to share not only what I do with the students, but why I am doing it. You were always so good at explaining your thinking, and it helped me understand so much about the process of teaching students. It was something that I could have never learned in a book. I hope to encourage reflection. I learned so much from our conversations about how the lesson went and brainstorming what changes I could make. Reflection was a way of sorting through the day and making sense of everything, I appreciate the opportunity to have someone to reflect with. I hope I can provide this to student teacher someday. I think managing your time, the logistics/politics of schools, parent communication, and some classroom management are things that you figure out on your own. You really don’t feel the reality of the situation until you are in it on your own. You have to figure out what works for you in the school you are at.