Sena Kose is currently a pre-service teacher from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She began her student teaching experience in January 2017, and plans to graduate with a certificate to teach English in grades 6-12 in May 2017.
This is the final post in a series about student teaching, mentoring, and how we are always becoming teachers: “The Coaching Tree for Teachers.“In this post, Sena reflects on our time working together, what she is discovering about teaching, 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?
Coming into your classroom, I was hesitant about teaching. I did not know how to communicate with students. In my mind, teacher-student relationship did not go beyond the classroom. In the classroom, this relationship was only about school work. I did not recognize that my students are teenagers with so many problems in their everyday lives, but more like robots who were waiting for my directions. In such a short amount of time, I learned to treat my students with respect, understanding, and kindness. Even looking at them in the eye and asking if they are doing okay means so much to them. As a new teacher, I was focused so much on teaching content that I would forget to communicate with them about their lives or even their day. I am glad to have acknowledged the deficiency of ‘human’ relationships early in my teaching career because students respond to teachers who they know care about them. Now, as I stand in the hall greeting students, I look them in the eye and ask, “Good morning, how are you today?”
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?
I think this depends greatly on the needs of my student teacher. I would try to approach his/her needs by balancing explicitly teaching them versus giving them the opportunity to explore. I think our co-teaching relationship is very similar to how I would handle a student teacher. I find your stories of experiences and relationships with students very helpful. Within every story you share with me, there’s a ‘lesson’ that I learn and try to use in our class. For example, sharing your experience with Isa helped me create a better relationship with her as I try not to push her limits, but still keep her on task. So, I think sharing and passing down personal teaching experiences will help my student teacher develop his/her approach to teaching. They will have a lot to discover and find out on their own, so it’s best if I can lower the amount of stressful discoveries for them.