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Tess Miller BHS Internship Midterm Reflection Reflection on Internship Last year, I decided to apply to be an intern at Blacksburg High school because I had not yet decided what age level I wanted to teach. I volunteered in a local elementary school last year and I have had experience working with younger children, but I had never worked as the teacher in a high school age group because I had so recently been in high school myself. For this reason I had been hesitant to teach at the high school age level, because I am so close in age I did not know how seriously the students would take me. After being offered a spot as an Academic Lab intern I became so excited to work at the high school level. This past summer I worked at the high school in my hometown as a teachers aide for summer school. This was such an incredible experience for me, and it helped me decide that I do in fact want to teach at the high school level. Despite the fact that I helped teach a math remediation class and I want to teach English, this experience helped me to become more secure in my teaching ability overall. Even though some of my students were less than a year younger than me, they still respected me as the teacher, which was one of my major concerns. Teaching at summer school made me so much more excited to work in the Academic Lab in the fall. To be completely honest, this internship has been not what I expected at all. It may be that my expectations were so high, but it simply has not lived up to them. I have learned a lot from the experience but not in the way I had hoped. I think that the setting of the Academic Lab

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is very difficult for interns to effectively help the students. Each student has their individual work, most of the time they dont need or want help, and if they do a teacher comes in to help. Most of the time I find myself not really helping any students and when I do it is forced. For example, if no one really needs help the teacher will assign me to a person to sit with simply to make sure they are on task. This frustrates me because Im not there to be their babysitter; Im there to help them with their work, which does not always happen. Today, I had an encounter with a student who observed that I do not do very much during class and called me out on it. I told him that it was simply because no one ever asked me for help and that I was more than willing to help whoever needed it, if only they were to ask me. He explained to me that he, personally, never wants to ask for help because he thinks it will make him sound stupid. This gave me so much insight into why the students do not always ask for help from me or from a teacher. It is difficult for them to admit to anyone that they need help, much less an intimidating college student who intrudes on their class once a week. I feel like in order to make a difference in their lives I need to be a larger part of their life; 45 minutes a week is not enough time to get to know them in order for them to swallow their pride and admit they need help. Its also more difficult for students to admit that they need help in classes where teachers are strict. Since the class is always quiet, this draws more attention to them when they ask for help and which could be embarrassing to them; not only do they have to admit to me that they need help but they also have to admit to the whole class that they need help. Also, the students in

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the classes with teachers who are less strict are much more open because everyone in the class interacts with one another. This experience has been very helpful for me in that it has exposed me to multiple teaching styles. There are very different atmospheres in each of the periods I am in the Academic Lab, which I believe is highly based on the teachers. I work with four different teachers in the Academic Lab, all with very different teaching styles. I have not yet discovered my identity and style as a teacher, partly through lack of experience but also because I adapt so well to other styles of teaching. I have always been an aide or assistant when working with students or in a classroom setting so I try to adapt to the teacher I work with so that the students do not receive mixed signals. This internship has exposed me to different styles of teaching and has helped me to assess what traits I want to imitate and what I want to avoid in teaching. One teacher, whose class I enjoy the most, is very energetic and outspoken. Hes a very humorous person which provides the students with entertainment. While the classroom is not always impeccably quiet, the students talk as a class rather than simply to the person next to them, which produces louder, more distracting noise. I think that this is better because they can be productive and enjoy the class at the same time. I have also noticed that the students in this class open up to me much more than those in the other classes because the classroom has a very open environment due to the open conversation. This class is the one in which I am the most engaged because they feel as though I am a part of their class and there is more going on rather than other classes where students do not work because they resent the teacher.

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The next teacher I work with is my second-most enjoyable class. The teacher is relatively similar to the one above but also very different. He talks much less however he allows the students to talk rather than forcing silence. This produces the same open atmosphere for the students which the makes it easier for them to open up to me as an intern. He is very approachable for them and they are not afraid to speak up in the lab. His teaching style is probably the one that I relate to the most. I am not a particularly funny person, but I am a fun person and I think that school should be fun (as obnoxious as that sounds.) But I really do love learning and I want my students in the future to feel the same way, which for the most part will not happen for high school students if they do not enjoy it. In contrast, the other two teachers had very different styles, styles that I do not personally agree with as much. One of them always wants the students to be quiet, whether they are talking about school, talking about an assignment, or even talking to me, she always makes them stop. I believe that in order for students to open up to me academically, to ask me for help, they must first open up to me personally. However, they are unable to open up to me personally because the teacher will not let them speak to me. She never even introduced me to the class as an intern. How are they supposed to come to me for help if they are not even really sure who I am and what Im doing there? While she tries to have complete control over the class at all times, it rarely works. Since she is so overbearing and hard on them, they have no respect for her and often times ignore what she tells them to do. At my age and in my position, I am able to see both

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the side of the student and the side of the teacher, and in most cases in this class I would side with the student. The final teacher I work with is similar in the way that she tries to have total control over her class but has more respect from the students. In these classes where the teachers demand silence at all times, the students often space out, put their heads down, and simply do not want to work. If I ever try to talk to them, she tells us to be quiet. I do not understand how Im supposed to break through to the students if every time I talk to them, she tells us to be quiet. Its frustrating to have such a different teaching style than the teacher I work under because then I must follow their example even when I completely disagree with it. The other day, there was an earthquake in which the students had to sit under the desks and hold on to the legs of the desk. They had to be quiet for the drill and follow instructions, neither of which they did. The students were very disrespectful to her, did the opposite of what she told them to do, and talked throughout the entire drill. She continuously tried to take back control of the class, unsuccessfully. I think that the fact that she did not earn their respect rather she demanded it caused them to respect her less. In this situation, I did not know what to do because on the one hand, I thought the students should have been listening to the teacher but on the other hand I cannot discipline them because that only degrades the teacher even more and diminishes their respect for her even more. Even though I disagree with some of the teachers and I often become frustrated with them, I have learned from them. Often times, I learn more from those that I disagree with than

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those I agree with. My high school English teacher, whom has been my inspiration in terms of teaching, once told me that as she grew up she kept a journal of Things not to do while teaching. I have begun to do the same thing so that not only do I observe what makes a good teacher so I can imitate it, I also observe what I believe makes a bad teacher so I can avoid it. The one negative trait of teachers I have observed, not only through this internship but also throughout my education, is the need for control. Some teachers seem to develop a struggle for power and enjoy being able to control their students. I personally strongly disagree with this. The job of the teacher is to share their knowledge with students in the best way they can, not to regulate their every move. I know that the Academic Lab has a very different setting than a regular classroom, but I think that the teaching styles remain roughly the same. Students will not become independent in their life and in their education if a teacher stands over them pushing them to work constantly. Rather this has the reverse affect. Mostly, the more someone orders another to do something, the less they want to do it. However, I do understand that students need to be pushed to a certain extent. Some may have no internal motivation, some no motivation at home, all have different circumstances, but there is a difference between motivating someone to learn/ work and forcing someone to learn/ work that should be recognized. This differentiation is what I believe separates a good teacher from a bad teacher. On the one hand, a good teacher will ignite a passion within the student to WANT to learn for themselves whereas bad teachers force the student to HAVE to learn as a requirement. For me, this defeats the whole purpose of education. I believe that teaching should

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be about inspiring students and focus more on teaching them how to learn rather than what to learn. Despite my different style than some of the teachers, they still were very kind to me. Mrs. Holdaway was very patient with working with my crazy schedule. Almost everyone I have worked with through this experience has been very helpful and nice to me. Since I have a free period between two periods that I work in the Academic Lab, I go to the teachers lounge and interact with many teachers I normally would not. They are all very friendly and thankful for me being there. I noticed that the atmosphere at Blacksburg High School is very warm and welcoming. Of, course like any stereotypical high school there are cliques with your jocks and your nerds, but they do not seem as divided as other high schools I have seen. It is interesting to work in the Academic Lab because there are people from all different cliques in one classroom. All of the students I work with are very different which makes it very interesting to watch them interact as well as to see them interact with the teacher and myself. Overall, despite the fact that my experience has not lived up to my expectations; I do not regret it at all. I still have learned so much from the teachers, both good and bad, from the students, and simply being in a high school setting. I have definitely learned more about the type of teacher I want to be and how I will interact with my students. I know that I still have a lot more to learn about my identity as a teacher and I will continue to learn as this internship continues. No matter how frustrated I am with a teacher or how little I help the students with homework, I will still take something away from the experience.

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