One Master Teacher Has It Down

April 14, 2008 in Interview an Elder
Tags: absences, attendance, career, classroom, detention, editor, education, friend, great, journal, kleenex, master teacher, mentor, newspaper, part, part 1, procedure, quiz, radio, school, student teacher, tardies, teacher

Part One of Four in my series on my two master teachers.

One master teacher is authoritarian. She expects a lot accomplished, and a lot of planning for lessons. Teaching is her second — third? fourth? fifteenth? — career.

She expects me to master every classroom system she’s established over her 16-odd years, every slightest procedure.

Journal every day; while you take attendance. Quizzes every Thursday. Detentions for tardies and absences. Extra credit for Kleenex.

She mentors student teachers every spring.

I met her last spring while working off my observation hours as a sub. As I passed through the hallway, I noticed a former editor of mine from my school newspaper.

I stopped by to say hello, and I was introduced to my friend’s then-current master teacher and my future one. Once I got to know my master teacher better, we discovered that I had met her husband from her first, only and current marriage — an August-September romance — through a previous short-term radio gig at the same college.

Small world.

This master teacher criticizes, scrutinizes, prosyltizes. She isn’t worried about my ability to talk. She’s worried about my ability to teach, though she’s worried less and less.

I’ve gotten better, and still I have a long way to go.