Reflection on being supervised

At the end of February 2020, I got a sore throat…then a fever…then a raspy cough that left me feeling like I had broken ribs…but…the show must go on. (By the way, while this was mere weeks before the Pandemic shut our school (and our nation) down, I tested and discovered that what I had was not Covid-19…which is only just a little disappointing. I would have known where I contracted it – that was at the height of a heated argument about collecting phones from students, as per the policy, even though some of them are teen parents. I hated this policy, rarely complied and if I ever took a phone from a student, I could feel Flu and Cold germs jumping on me, ha ha. The pandemic took this to a new height making me wonder if the phone-collection policy will remain when we go back to campus.)

When my supervisor visited, I was very sick, it was very cold and I was very exhausted from teaching both day time high school and night time adult ed. I toyed with canceling the visit, but felt that if I delayed, I would just grow to dread it, and besides…way better to be mentored as a newbie than supervised as a more experienced teacher. I was counting on the kindness I got, if for no other reason, than maybe pity.

As an older career shifter working in the most challenging of class settings, the best I can say is I consistently went back. When I mentioned that that was the strongest thing I could say about my teaching, she reminded me that we might be teaching and the students might be learning, but what is being taught is not always what is being learned and vice versa. I know she is right, but it feels like a cop out.

Just days after she left a student was organizing his binder and asked me what class I was teaching. I had had this student for a month and he was unable to identify the subject (U.S. Government) that I was teaching. I can admit that now, but that afternoon I went to the gym and worked out harder than ever until I broke down crying in front of my personal trainer. I was just so upset by my total lack of teaching clarity that the student didn’t even know what I was teaching. I mentioned this in my follow up memo and my supervisor came back with a plausible explanation: Maybe he just didn’t know how to spell the word “Government.” Upon reflection, he asked me to write it out for him – so maybe she was right.

Wasted tears, but a damn good workout.

I am starting a new position and have met some of my colleagues and they’re all so kind and generous. One is a teacher coach – and they all wear that hat occasionally with each other, so when the coach asked me if I wanted to be mentored I jumped at the chance. The depth of connection I felt to my SIT supervisor during what I consider a very raw and painful memory of having someone observe me in the class leads me to believe that not only will my next experience as a teacher go better, but my next experience being mentored will lift me even more.