Week 4: Trial by Fire

1/31/10

When I showed up Monday morning, a substitute/guest teacher was reviewing the notes my mentor teacher had left for the day.  I was glad to have met the guest teacher before, and we worked together well that day, but I admit it was rather disconcerting to go the day without knowing the reason for my mentor teacher’s absence or if she would be back Tuesday. (She was.  She had had a once-a-year migraine for the duration of the weekend.)

Our guest teacher began each class period by directing students to their journal writes, and after a short while I took over to hand out their final study guides (which my teacher had left on her desk and which I had not seen before that morning.)  First period was especially rocky, because I was going through the study guide myself for the first time and hearing their exclamations of, for example, “We never studied that.”  I explained the gist of the guide’s purpose and consistently referred specific questions to the teacher’s return.  Thankfully, the majority of the period could legitimately be given them to work on finishing up their posters and preparing for Tuesday’s presentations.  They at least were glad to have been given a day’s reprieve before presenting.  After first period, I wrote the class’s agenda down and displayed it on the document camera, which made subsequent periods go much more smoothly. 

Essentially, throughout the day I facilitated what I could—passing out study guides and assuaging fears—but I was careful not to commit to anything of which I was not sure, especially regarding the content or form of the final.  One of the valuable aspects of this mentor teacher-less day was that whereas students had still tended to direct their questions to my mentor teacher while it was the two of us in the classroom, they adjusted when the choice was between the substitute teacher and me.  I became for a day the preferred source of answers, an experience which will come in handy as I take over a good portion of the class beginning next week.