Keeping Afloat: First Semester Ch.1
“The blank page awaits the writer’s first sentence, while new teachers, charged with the task of getting students to write and navigating new graduate programs themselves, are largely untrained, unsure of their responsibilities, and equipped with a syllabus they did not design and perhaps a list of pedagogical procedures they do not understand. The first semester is more of a day-to-day keeping afloat than it is a carefully constructed, planned course.” (Restaino 1)
This quote from our reading for today, Jessica Restaino’s First Semester really resonated with me. Over the last couple of weeks of teaching, I feel like I have just had to take things day by day and class by class; trying to learn students’ names, planning class activities, troubleshooting Canvas... the list could go on and on. Each week I feel like I am learning along with the students as I prepare for class and this has made me sometimes doubt my own abilities. Despite all the planning we did last semester, right now teaching does kind of feel like just “keeping afloat.” Is anyone else feeling similarly?
However, I am really thankful for the preparation that we did receive through the Writing Program through mentoring and ID 601. As Restaino describes in her book, the location of her study “Public U,” trained their first year teaching assistants with a 3 day orientation before the semester. When I was applying to graduate school, this was what I was expecting from a teaching assistantship and one of the reasons I was so drawn to the program here at BSU. Looking back on it now, I’m not sure I can even imagine what my first semester would have looked like if I had been thrown into teaching right off the bat like the students in Restaino’s study.
In reading the descriptions of each of the participants in Restaino’s study, the struggle between being a student and a teacher was a recurring theme. I found that Tess’s concern that she expressed in her post-orientation survey about time was really relatable and prompted the question: how do we decide which to prioritize, our students or our own learning?
I think that I have already started to experience this tension between being both a teacher and a student. As an example of this, a couple of days ago I sat down to give the students in my ENG 104 class feedback on an assignment they turned in and ended up spending the whole afternoon doing that instead of my own reading. I knew that the feedback would be beneficial for my students, but it may have come at the slight expense to my own learning and preparedness for my classes. Part of this I'm sure is just time management and something that will develop. However, I can’t help but think that Tess’s sentiment might be right as well: “I don’t think there are hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the semester to accomplish everything in a meticulous way” (13). So, how do we decide where to compromise? How can we be great teachers while also being great students and at the same time (in Tess’s words) maintain our own sanity?
I think that to start, it might be important to just acknowledge that we will have to make compromises and that we will just have to try to find a balance that works for us. I’m not sure that there is a straightforward answer to this, but it is something that I am sure we will be grappling with this semester and I look forward to your thoughts.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI agree that there is not a straightforward answer to solving this issue of balancing the roles of teacher and student within our lives. As much as I wish it could be easier for all of us, we each have to find the thing that works for us that makes teaching while learning a better experience. I think having better resources, like the extra counseling that was just added for GAs, can be helpful, but it's ultimately up to us to try things out that may help with the balance.
I also feel like I'm "keeping afloat" while teaching. I guess I always saw teaching as this profound profession where an expert passes on their knowledge in order to make their students better at their field of expertise. I never realized that even college instructors, like us, could just be scared graduate students struggling to make deadlines as well as to make ends meet. If anything, this whole GA experience has given me a new appreciation for teachers. As much as I wish I could see myself succeeding and going "above and beyond," I'm okay with things staying chill and drama free with my teaching. For right now, "staying afloat" works for me until I feel more comfortable in the classroom.
Taylor,
DeleteI think we can all resonate with this chapter. I wrote down in my notes: I really felt what Jessica Restaino said in her opening of this chapter: how graduate students’ day-to-day is more about staying afloat than following a carefully constructed planned course (1). It’s true: we’re still learning how to be grad students and we’re certainly still learning how to be writing teachers.
As I am thankful for the first semester's preparation in the Writing Program, I also was never trained in education: how to run a class, prepare lessons, and deal with the minuscule tasks that are overlooked as a student. We can study theory and pedagogy all day long, but it is definitely a learn-as-we-go in how to actually apply these things to our classrooms.
Thanks for sharing,
McKenzie
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your thoughts on Restaino’s reading. Like yourself, I have found it difficult to find the time to feel prepared, even with the preparation we received. Classroom environment aside, it is so difficult to balance being an instructor with being a student. Your professors tell you to be a student first, but your financial stability tells you to be a teacher first. How can we tell which voice should win?
Making compromises is a tough call, because there is no real straight answer. When I focus more on teaching, I feel like I am cheating myself from learning, and when I cut back on teaching duties, I feel like I cheat my students. I wish I knew the answers in terms of where to compromise and how to maintain our sanity, but honestly I am just as unsure.
Taylor,
ReplyDeleteYou're saying so many things I felt while doing the reading as well! I absolutely resonated with Tess, just like you--something has to give, but what? It's a struggle to try to determine what has to fall to the wayside, because as much as we don't want to admit it, sometimes something just does have to be put aside for the time being. We're teachers and students, but we're also humans, and we can't always juggle everything perfectly.
I think it can be particularly difficult because a lot of us in our cohort and in our programs are type A/perfectionist types, and we struggle to make those choices about what we let sit on the back burner for a bit. It's hard to accept that we can't always do it all, and we're made to feel as though we have to. It's definitely a balancing act for all of us, but also, I wonder if there ever will be a perfect balance. As pessimistic as it sounds, I think we'll all get through it, but I don't know that perfect balance is a possibility between the many roles we hold right now.
I definitely think that navigating these roles is particularly difficult because most of us have never been in a position of educational authority, so not only are we navigating identities in roles (which we will spend the rest of our lives doing), but we are navigating roles with diametrical expectations and standards. My biggest take right now is trying to use that to my advantage: to be more empathetic and in tune with both my instructors and my students since I am playing both parts. I know that's a lot easier said than done, but I am trying to get the good I can out of it.
ReplyDeleteHey Taylor,
ReplyDeleteI can easily relate to your thought. This is undoubtedly a tough task, specially when you have your own major areas to work on aside for the academic degree. To be honest, we are here for that. But we can't just ignore our responsibilities as a TA too. Most of our time is going after preparing for our teaching classes, planning materials, maintaining students and all those abstract crucial things that we have to keep in mind always.
This is somehow frustrating, I agree. And the word 'compromise' here is a big word. It's not easy to compromise. But we have to do that. I know I can't give you any straightforward answer or suggest any magical strategy that would solve your problem. But I would just chime with JJ. Try to get the best out of it. Teaching is a process. We are learning every single day. Through this learning process, we would learn how to manage our time, and learn how to merge things and do everything accordingly. It's true that we are now stressed out. But hope we would soon get over it when we will be used to it.
Good luck to your teaching!
I too was drawn to Ball State's program because of its reputation for pedagogical training.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting then, that, after this more robust course of training and support, we still find ourselves connecting with these students at Public U through our shared sense of being overwhelmed.
That puts this whole enterprise into perspective for me: yes, we are stressed, and all of those concerns we have are valid, but they are not unique. They seem to be common experiences related to learning this craft. I would say that they are concerns and experiences common to learning any craft.
And, like with any craft, we need to be willing to make mistakes. You talk about compromises, and I read into that statement my own fears of compromising too much and not giving students what they need. Yet, I think students are surprisingly resilient. Think about your own school experiences (by God, we've had so many!). I'm sure you've had not just an inexperienced teacher like you or I, but a terrible teacher who by all good judgement should not be allowed in a classroom. And yet, here you are in grad school.
If those terrible teachers don't completely screw up a student's trajectory, then I think we can feel comfortable trying and failing and learning how to do it just a little better the next time.
-Lucas
Taylor, I totally understand where you're coming from, and I feel the same way. How can we decide what gets priority and what can fall away? Like it said in the book, I'm taking everything day by day and trying to stay afloat as best I can.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about my students, too. I sat down to give them some feedback and it took a whole day - I got behind on other things. At the same time, I feel like I owe it to them to give them a lot of guidance! They need support, because most of them aren't really motivated to be there in the first place. I want to keep them invested and interested. One way that I have tried to take some of the pressure off myself is to level with my students a bit. I tell them that I'm really busy too, and that I may forget or overlook things. I tell them that if they're really struggling, they can't rely on me to immediately notice and help them out - I need them to communicate with me and tell me where they're at. This way, I can devote time to both being a student and a teacher.
Hi Taylor,
ReplyDeleteSomething curious and unexpected to me about these posts is that any of us is in a position in which we all could have written exactly the same. Before we started teaching, I thought that I would probably have more difficulties than most of you to face this new commitment. However, as I have exchanged thoughts with some of you and read your posts, I realize that we all have the same struggles in a different place. This makes me feel that I am probably doing what I am supposed to do. I say this because I think we all are committed to do things the right way, then stress and disappointment will come when we feel we are not complying with it.
It is very hard to have to teach and study at the same time, but I consider that, as any of the big challenges we have had before, we will find our own way to solve things and keep the balance. I don't know if this helps, yet there are other colleagues at Ball State who are more experienced in teaching and are still studying that have taught for more than a year and they are still "alive". If we don't feel the change, maybe we are not really changing. Growing is painful, but fruitful.
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