Hello everyone,
I got into secondary education because I love literature, I love helping people, and I love getting people excited about reading. But one semester into the program, I am in abject misery. I count down the minutes until I get to leave my placement and I spend the whole time panicking. I can’t connect with the kids or with my coop teacher. My methods classes are completely miserable.
I’m thinking about being a youth or kids’ librarian instead. I would graduate as an English major and have to do two years of grad school, which, given my anxiety, is a pretty daunting prospect-but not as daunting as trying to force myself through student teaching when I hate every second of it. This summer, I am going to shadow some librarians and see what their day to day lives are like.
I want to quit the program this summer, and I haven’t mostly because my parents and grandmother are helping me pay for college and don’t want me to quit. Any advice?
@chiyomihama Some questions to think about (you don’t necessarily have to answer them here, but they could guide you in the right direction):
Did you have experience teaching / working with kids before this? Did you like it?
What exactly is making you unhappy?
How have you tried connecting with the kids?
Do you think you’d be happier in a different type of school?
Have you expressed your concerns to your coop teacher?
I had a very shaky student teaching experience - I can be very introverted and it was really scary for me to be up in front of a classroom. By the end of the year I came out of my shell a bit but I still cringe when I think about how clueless and quiet I was during that time. I never really bonded with my coop teacher at all. Now I’m in my third year and things are going really, really well. I got more confidence in myself, and I did a lot of reading up on my own (it is a universally accepted fact that methods classes are useless). I feel very comfortable knowing what a good lesson should be, I was rated highly efficient this year, and I’m actually looking forward to next year. These are all things I never would have thought based on my student teaching experience, and I’m so glad I powered through. Whether it’s right for YOU to power through I think maybe depends on your answers to the above questions.
My best friend from my cohort quit teaching after his first real year. He was miserable at an inner city school. But his student teaching placement was at a very different college-prep academy. I think if he had stayed in that environment he would have been very happy. It might just be a case of finding the right placement.
Also can you work with kids in a place like a church doing sunday school or something?