Becoming Miss Buscher (or perhaps Señorita, since I will be a Spanish teacher after all)

For my final post this semester, I am actually writing an assignment for my education class.  The point of the class has been to discover our teaching identities and our final project is to create an expression of the identity we have been discovering over the semester.  I have chosen to use my blog because it is more fun than writing a normal old essay in Word and I don't really love art, but in a blog I can both write and use pictures and that seemed perfect to me. 

So without further ado. . .

The first time I remember wanting to be a teacher was in 3rd grade.  I have no recollection of how I developed the idea, but from third grade on, the thought was always somewhere in my head that when I grew up, I was going to be a teacher.  Just so we're clear, my image of what is means to be a teacher has changed drastically in the past 13 years of my life, and especially in the past 3.  Let me show you a little bit what I mean.

In fourth grade, I dressed up as a teacher for Halloween.

So, what you can see from this picture is that my 4th grade image of a teacher was a cardigan sweater, lipstick, and funny-looking glasses.  What you can't see is the bun in my hair, the really chunky black shoes and the very plain, tan dress.  Sometimes I wonder at my child brain - what kind of child wants to be a teacher for Halloween?  I also wonder what my teacher thought of my Halloween "costume."  I can just imagine her chatting with other teachers, "One of my students dressed up like a "teacher" and it was just sooo cute" and all the teachers laughing.  I know I would have laughed about it. 

Anyhow, continuing with my identity.  Every year I changed my mind about what grade I would teach when I grew up.  Because I always wanted to teach the grade I was in at the time.  I guess it makes sense that I wanted to be a teacher because I loved school and I loved my teachers.  I was good at school.  Sixth grade was my first opportunity to be a sort of teacher.  We had a peer tutoring program and I was chosen one quarter to tutor one of my classmates.  Instead of going to study hall, I would sit in a small room with a girl who was struggling with school and try to help her with her homework.  I honestly don't remember that much about it, except that the girl I tutored I had met on the very first day of junior high and thought maybe we could be friends until I heard her swearing, which in my middle school brain was intolerable.  So trying to tutor a girl I had decided I didn't really like was a struggle.  Plus, if my teachers couldn't figure out how to motivate her, I don't know how I was expected to inspire her to do her homework.  I did find out more about her personal life though and it sounded like she had a rocky home life, which I think contributed to her acting out in school and not performing well.

Since I didn't really love middle school, I teaching it never really appealed to me.  Then, I started high school and I loved it!  In all of my classes I observed my teachers very closely and always found myself thinking "If I were a teacher, I would never do that or be like that.  I would be like this teacher" etc.  When people asked me what I wanted to study in college, I didn't automatically say education because I wasn't really sure that's what I wanted to study, but becoming a teacher was still in my mind.  The one thing I was absolutely sure about is that I wanted to study Spanish.  Since my first day of Spanish class in 7th grade, I was in love with the language, even though I was bored by the slow pace of my early classes.  In high school I also got to be an informal teacher a lot, as I explained various concepts to my classmates and helped answer their questions about the homework.  Two of my friends called me every week for help on our physics problems and I would explain every step of what I did to make sure they understood.

My sophomore year of high school I signed up to be a leader for the junior high youth group at my church.  Every week I would have to lead a small group for about 30 minutes at the end of the large group time.  I always found it difficult to keep my girls focused and interested in the lesson of the day.  I had no idea how to make the material engaging, especially since they had already sat in school all day and didn't want another "teacher" making them pay attention.  It was also very difficult because the first year I participated, I was only two years older than some of the students, so they were practically my peers. 

This is a pic of my sixth grade girls and co-leaders for junior high school group my senior year of high school.

First semester freshman year, I freaked out because I pretty much thought I had to decide my life right away.  I had to pick a major and figure out where I wanted to study abroad so that I could make sure I would have time to fit in all my credits. In choosing a major I was caught between education and international studies.  I really wanted to do international studies because of my interest in foreign languages and cultures, but it was not a "teachable" major, much to my disappointment.  Eventually I decided that I would do international studies because college is about studying what you are interested in and I could always get certified to teach later on.  Then, I went home for parents' weekend instead of my parents visiting me, and I ran into a lady at my church that I knew, name Phyllis.  Phyllis is a grandmother who teaches ESL at our local community college, although before that she had taught elementary school.  She and I went on a couple mission trips together to El Salvador.  When I talked to her, I told her I was planning on majoring in international studies and figured that I could become a teacher later if I wanted.  Her advice was that if I thought I was interested in education, I should do it in college because it is much easier than trying to get certified later.  Well, this was the weekend before registration for spring classes and I had already planned to take several courses I would need for an international studies major.  After thinking about what Phyllis recommended to me, I created a backup schedule with the intro ed course in it.  The courses I initially wanted all filled up in the first two days of registration, and of course first semester freshmen are not allowed to register online even if they have more than 20 credits (which I did and was not happy that I had to register in person).  However, there was plenty of room in educational psychology and encounter with cultures when I went to register.  I'm not sure I would have said so at the time, but I now look at those events as divine intervention.  I think God put Phyllis in my path and filled up the class I had wanted so that I would have to take the education classes and from there I was set on my major. (Well actually, I still had to decide what to do other than Spanish; between Chemistry minor and Social Studies major, the latter won).

Second semester freshman year, I learned two things: 1) I loved my educational psychology and wanted to continue with the education program  2) I had zero interest in teaching grade schoolers.  That semester I participated in CASA, which is a great program and all of my friends who had previously done it loved it.  My tutee was cute and very focused, but I just could not envision myself teaching at such a basic level.  My first field placement was with Mr. Merryman at Harbor Lights Middle School in a 6th grade math classroom.  I cannot say I fell in love with teaching right there and then.  The first day of that placement, Mr. Merryman told me that after spending time in his classroom I would not longer want to be a teacher.  Perhaps he was joking, but he did not make a very good impression on the first day.  I spent most of that placement just sitting and observing and I had no idea how I would ever be prepared to stand in front of a class and teach.

During the August before sophomore year, I was a counselor at Camp Sunshine for my Exceptional Child field placement.  Camp Sunshine is a four-day camp for people with exceptionalities.  Each counselor is paired with a camper and in charge of his or her welfare for the duration of the camp.  My camper was too difficult for one counselor to work with, so I was paired with two other Hope students to care for her.  Our camper's name was Crystal, and she had cerebral palsy, slight cognitive impairment, and she was dead-weight.  My co-counselors and I had to learn to use a Hoyer lift in order to move Crystal from her motorized wheelchair to her bed and back.  Camp Sunshine was probably one of the most exhausting weeks of my life, but it was also very rewarding.  I had so much fun hanging out with all the campers and I learned so much about working with people with exceptionalities.  Actually, I discovered that I fit in very well with that group of people :-)

Camp Sunshine!  Me, Marcella, Crystal, and Sarah.

In the fall, we learned all about the different types of exceptionalities in my ed class and how to accommodate students in the classroom.  That class enhanced my experiences from Camp Sunshine.

Second semester sophomore year, I took Secondary Block and Spanish Methods.  At first I was really nervous about them because I was one of very few underclassmen in these classes and I felt too young to be a teacher.  Both classes were very formative in my teaching identity.  In Secondary Block, I learned how to write a lesson plan and we discussed ideas of how to manage a classroom.  In methods, I had to teach a mini lesson almost every week and bring ideas for activities.  I also wrote my first unit plan.  By the end of that semester, I felt like I had made so much progress.  I had taught my first lesson to actual middle school students, in my placement at West Middle School.  That placement was not much better than my first one, and the teacher spent most of the time complaining about teaching, but I was able to observe with more of a teacher lens.  I felt like the next semester should be student teaching, but instead I was off to Lima, Peru for study abroad.

My concept map for Secondary Block.  My theme was the Glen Ellyn Public Library, which is where I have been working since I was 15.

My experiences in Peru may not directly have had anything to do with my teaching identity, but since they were very formative in my general identity, they were also crucial to my teaching identity.  In addition, the improvement is my Spanish skills was necessary for becoming a Spanish teacher.  In Peru, I learned to be much more outgoing and confident, which have been immensely helpful in my field placement this semester.  I also learned a lot about who I am and what I am capable of.  I became much more comfortable with the idea of being outside my comfort zone and I also learned to deal with my fear of failure.  My whole first semester in Peru, I was so afraid of speaking Spanish poorly that I hardly spoke at all.  I realized that was only holding me back, of course, and thus became more bold and let go of some of my perfectionism.  While in Peru I volunteered with an organization that worked to rehabilitate street kids who had taken drugs.  First semester I worked in the girls' house (ages 12-16) and second semester I was placed in the boys house (ages 9-17).  I had never worked with such a difficult population before, and although I was more playing games with them than teaching them, I learned a lot about interacting with children from difficult backgrounds. 

La Casa de Niñas de Mundo Libre (Girls' house) On my last day in first semester my co-volunteer and I brought sugar cookies, homemade frosting, and sprinkles for the girls to decorate Christmas cookies.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the start of this semester I remember feeling wholly unprepared to be a teacher.  I felt like I had forgotten all I learned spring sophomore year before heading off to my adventures in Peru, and I also had some doubts about whether I even wanted to be a teacher.  However, I have grown so much this semester.  The combination of a great field placement (finally!) and a lot of time to reflect in Secondary Principles has made me feel as prepared as possible for student teaching - and not only prepared but also excited.  When I first went to my field placement I was very uneasy about it because I discovered I was in an economics class and I struggled with economics in high school (and by struggle I mean I got a B in macroecon AP, hardly struggling by average standards) and I don't really love econ.  Plus, having received AP credit from high school, I had not had an econ class in five years.  Soon, all my worries melted away as I got to know Mr. McManus and his students.  This was my first high school placement as well as my first social studies placement.  I could tell right away that Mr. McManus was going to be different than my other mentor teachers by the way that he tried to get me involved from the get-go.  He was very enthusiastic about giving me opportunities to teach, which I may have been somewhat hesitant about at first.  Standing in front of a roomful of students made me very nervous the first couple times, but it got much easier the more I practiced.  In my second to last week at the placement, I taught without preparing - not because I was being irresponsible but because Mr. McManus wanted me to watch him third period and then teach 4th period.  That lesson probably went more smoothly than some of the first lessons I taught simply because of the fact that I felt more comfortable and confident standing in front of my students, and I actually felt like a teacher.  That is one of the biggest pieces of progress I made this semester with my teaching identity.  I went from thinking like a teacher and thinking about being a teaching to actually being a teacher.  There was a day in my field placement when Mr. McManus was not able to come to school because his daughter was sick.  I had been planning to teach a lesson, but I did not know until the day of that he would not be there.  Honestly, it was the best day of my field placement because I was the teacher.  The substitute didn't even introduce himself to the class because he knew I was supposed to teach and he let me be the teacher.  The students approached me with questions and paid attention to me.  They didn't even acknowledge the substitute.  And I felt like the lesson went very well.  I used a power point for the first time and tried very hard to incorporate personal stories - I had learned from previous lessons that if I didn't think of specific examples before class, I had a much harder time explaining concepts, and using personal examples helped me and made the material more interesting to the students.  The greatest challenge was simply the fact that I was not completely comfortable with the material, since I had to read the students' textbook in order to teach them.  Even still, none of my lessons were terrible and I improved a lot over the course of the semester.  I realized that my education classes have prepared me very well, and that what I most need is practice.

On the theme of practice, my student teaching semester will be all about practice.  My placement is at Hudsonville

After student teaching and graduation, my future is slightly undecided.  I applied for a Fulbright Scholarship this fall to teach English in Jordan, but I do not find out whether I receive the award until April-June.  In the meantime, I will be applying for teaching jobs in the spring, probably in the Chicago area where I am from.  I plan to teach for a few years and then return to grad school.  If I have realized nothing else this semester, I have learned that becoming a teacher is more than just earning a bachelor's degree.  I will continue to develop my teaching identity many years into my teaching career.  Lately I have been thinking that I would really like to affect school reform, so maybe I will pursue a degree in school administration (I just wrote a paper comparing the educational systems of India, China, and the United States and it got me a bit riled up about our system of education).  Or I may study linguistics and work to start more immersion programs because I believe that American students should grow up bilingual.  Maybe I will return to Peru to teach, at least for a short time.  Who knows?  What I do know is that whatever I do in the future, I will always have my teaching skills and my teaching identity, and those are very valuable, as they may be applied in many different fields. 

I am now Miss Buscher.

I don't have any pictures from my field placement, but this is a fairly recent picture of me, and it is in the library so I look studious :-)