My Experience
as a Protégé
by
Stephanie Marcussi
It is difficult for me
to fathom graduate students being given a teaching position with little to
no experience as a teacher, let alone experience as a college-level professor.
It seems that many universities are saying, "If you’re eligible for a
Masters Degree, you must know enough to be an adequate teacher." While
it may be true that the graduate students know plenty, it is not always true
that they are or feel qualified to teach what they know. For this reason,
I am grateful for my involvement with the program at CSU Hayward.
The invention of a teacher
training program, or this organization we have been calling the "mentor/mentee"
independent study, has only benefited me and my future students. Since I have
had the quarter to observe Sue Connell in English 1001, and teach in her class,
my thoughts and feelings about teaching have been altered. Although I have
had many professors as a student in many classes, I have never before focused
wholly on pedagogy. Previously I was more interested in learning the subject
the professor was teaching; this quarter I have focused on teacher/student
relationships in exchange of information, preparing lessons, and the grading
process.
The teacher/student relationship
is one that must be established from the moment the two meet. When the professor
introduces herself and her ethos, it is understood that she will be guiding
the class. From there it is up to the students to follow her lead. As a student,
I have learned that this can be tricky to catch everything the teacher is
saying; as a teacher, it can be difficult to ensure that the students are
doing the catching.
For example, during the
course of the quarter, I found myself introducing vocabulary and ideas that
were sometimes very foreign to most of the students. The time that comes to
mind is when I began talking about metaphors, and how I thought I should remind
the students to use metaphors as an alternative way to describe objects or
ideas in their essays. As I spoke, everything I said sounded so clear to me.
I saw the students’ blank faces, and interpreted that to mean I was boring
them. I thought they had probably heard all about metaphors before and had
already mastered them. Realizing I was losing their attention, I stopped and
asked a student to explain what a metaphor is. It was then that I realized
she did not know, and no one else knew, either. The whole time I had been
explaining it, I was using language that they were completely unfamiliar with.
I learned that I should not overestimate the students’ base knowledge, and
that I should include them more in the explanation of a subject to be sure
they have an understanding of the concept I am teaching.
In teaching new concepts,
I am more aware of how I plan my lessons. Leading the students in exercises,
essays, and discussions should not be something that is considered "busy
work." I caught myself wanting to do this occasionally, and then I had
to ask myself, how is this immediately relevant to what the students are writing?
I tried to find ways in which I could correlate an exercise around in something
they would be interested. I realized they cared most about their essays, or
writing that would be graded, so I incorporated lessons around revising those
drafts. In "The New St. Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing" by Connors
& Glenn, this concept is validated.
An example of this revision
process includes my lesson on paragraph development. I not only reviewed the
concept in class, but I allowed the students to revise the paragraphs
in their rough drafts (before I collected them). By having their own writing
in front of them, it was more relevant for them; they saw and corrected their
own mistakes. Whatever I am teaching must be within the context of not only
the course, but the context of what the students should be able to take away
from having spent ten weeks in my class.
Because the ten week mark
does end the quarter, there has to be some way each student can also mark
his or her progress throughout the quarter. Unfortunately, as a teacher that
means I have to assign grades. I feel bittersweet about having to do this
because I saw students this quarter that progressed greatly, but when all
the points were added up, they earned a "C" when their effort was
deserving of an "A." Because grades are required by the university,
they are inescapable; however, I have learned to let my comments speak louder
than the grade. I try to present myself to the students as someone who can
help them improve, rather than someone who merely grades them.
I have tried to incorporate
all I have learned this quarter into my memory about teaching, but I realize
that just as writing is a continual process of revision, so is my learning
about teaching. In a way, I have gathered only a tiny bit of the art of pedagogy,
and I will not be able to completely understand the teacher/student relationship,
lesson planning, and grading until I have a class of my own. However, I do
have a better idea of the process and flow of how a course operates. I feel
I am better equipped to handle certain teaching situations because of my enrollment
in the "mentor/mentee" program this quarter.
Works
Cited
Conners, Robert and Cheryl
Glenn, eds. The New St. Martin’s Guide to Teaching Writing. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1999.
