Student Taught  − 12 March, 2008

I've had a student teacher for 3 months now. It's been really very interesting, and tough. She's headstrong, and set in her ways, and that has given me the opportunity to really grow as a teacher. I've had to find ways to deal with resistance to guidance in ways that I haven't before. I mean with a kid it's easy. Do this or recieve this consequence. SImple and to the point. That I am finding out doesn't work in the big kids world. You have to think about things like feelings, and reputation, and the fact that they will be back again tomorrow. Heh. All that said, I was the one that had to learn first so that I was able to teach her how to teach in the way that she needed to learn it.

Fast forward through all the B.S. that led to this. I finally got it. Guidance doesn't have to be in the form of a direction. It's actually all about the things that you do. If I don't set the example for an adult learner I won't be able to expect them to model the skill. Heh, imagine that, the things that I do are louder than the things that I say.

So I've taken all this and put it into a new form of communication. I've done the things that I asked her to first, set the example, and then just picked up the little loose ends that she hasn't gotten to making practice yet. It's so much easier to do it this way. I spend so much less time saying how to do something. I just ask how that can be molded to fit her style.

That being said, another thing that I learned was that you don't have to like someone to be able to work with them. This I ahve to say is really the first time that I actually don't like someone that I am working with. Most of the time I actually do like someone, or can stay far enough away to be able to let them pass through without creating some kind of lasting effect. Well, this just isn't the case this time. It's nothing professional, it's all personal, and so it has no place creating fog in my judgements of her as a teacher. So how do I get past it? So far it's been good. I see that this is the case. I really just don't like her. She's just a polar opposite of me, or more to the point, just like me when I was young. So, I have to look at that and say well, I became a pretty damn good teacher, she's got all the same tendencies, and flaws. Those eventually were tamed and turned into strenths. Can that happen for her? I think it may, given time, and maybe a little hard knock here and there. I've given all that I can, she's come around as far as I can ask her to, and now it's someone elses turn to pass on a little more experience once she gets into the real world. I hope that she gets it, and does a good job along the way. I have to say that as of now, I wouldn't let my daughter sit in her class, but that may change, and so I have to look on with acceptance, and hope that learning becomes as much a part of her life as it is mine.