Road to Teaching
I gained a lot more confidence and felt more
comfortable about my teaching after reading the first chapter of the book ‘First
semester: graduate students.teaching writing, and the challenge of middle ground’
by Jessica Restaino. Because I used to consider myself as a failed, frustrated and depressed graduate student before.
Being an international student, surviving here is not that much easier for me.
It’s really hard for me to cope up with all these new challenges. And not being
a student from the composition background made my journey harder and difficult. I
used to consider myself the weakest student here. I always thought it’s me
who is lagged behind and that’s all happening due to my failure to catch hold
of this new environment. But now I can relate to my problems and difficulties.
This is not me only who have those complaints, this is not me only who have to
go through all these difficulties. With days passing by and especially reading
these articles, I got to know I’m not the only one. Most of the grad students
have to undergo the same phase to some extent when they are assigned with these
composition classes, where they are responsible for their own classes, own
designed syllabus, own assignments, and own materials. It’s not that much facile
to teach a composition class, especially when you just can’t forget that you are
here with some other objectives and that’s your own concentration for your own
desired degree. Like for me, my concentration is Linguistics which has nothing
to do with this composition class. So, without any doubt I admit these controversies
going on for years about this writing program manual. To some point, there’s
something always keep the new grad assistants in dilemma and frustration for a couple
of days when they are entrusted with teaching ‘writing’ in class.
Anyway, my aim is
not to discourage the grad students, possessed as writing class instructors.
Now, I will show the other side of the coin which removes all the allegations
and show its (Writing Program’s) beauty. First of all, I would like to mention
my sense of achievement. This grad program is helping me growing up as a teacher.
For me, it’s hard to teach completely a new section that I never heard of.
But, I’m learning. I’m adding feathers of knowledge and experiences in my areas
of expertise. This writing program helps me to know the world differently and
learns new things, that probably never might have caught my eyes. I came here
with a desire to walk in the area of research and establish my career in academia. This place is my first grand step in teaching. The writing program is
preparing me with professional knowledge. I’m possessing as a real teacher
without having any former qualifications to teach in a University. That’s
amazing. My life now revolves around a completely new area of knowledge. I’m
learning and I’m teaching. This is not a blessing for me only but for all the
grad assistants in the Writing Program who get this opportunity to play two
roles altogether and enhance their set of skills every single day. All those
readings, We had in ID 601 and now are having in ENG 605 are opening the windows
of knowledge. The best part for me to learn here is about the Learner-centered
teaching environment. This is very new to me. As I came from a completely
different background where the teacher plays the lead role and talks around 80 % of
the time of the class. The writing program familiarized me with this world which I
really always thought of. I learned here how to pace the class through
discussion and make my students talk in class. This is a great learning for me.
For the first few classes, my instinct nature of lecturing used to appear in
class. Even I couldn’t stop myself in spite of being so concerned. But now I’m
far away from that. I understand my students, I know how to make them
comfortable in class and make them discussing in class with their peers which
is really important in a writing class. Now I know teaching is not about
lecturing.
With all the
difficulties, I have been suffering throughout this semester, I‘m much
confident now and happy about my learning.
This writing program
is helping me out through giving me the opportunity to train up myself for
teaching. Now I know how to create assignments, how to design syllabus, how to
do unit planning and creating all other materials ensuring my students learning
progress.
This writing
program helps me to revise my writing skills too. I got to know about different
theories, strategies, and processes regarding writing skills which helps me to
cultivate my writing skills too.
To conclude, I
would like to say ID 601 and Eng 605 are my roads to teaching.
Mow,
ReplyDeleteI think we can all relate to the first paragraph of your blog where you discus your struggles. Although yours are unique from being an international students, I think all of us have found it difficult to balance everything while being thrown in a discipline that we are not focused in (rhet/comp). I know all of us have experienced some form of imposter syndrome at one point or another throughout the first semester, making us lesser than others in the cohort. I think it can be really easy to slip into comparing when we're all teaching the same class and some of the same material, but we're all such different people with a diverse set of skills. I think it's all about finding what skills you feel comfortable bringing to the table.
I really liked the reflection on the positive that you included to balance out the more negative things you mentioned in your post. It can be really hard to stay positive when we mainly teach freshmen who really don't want to be in our classes. Finding optimism when we've been thrown to the wolves with barely any preparation can be hard, so it was nice to read how it has worked for you. I hope we all continue to have a balance of experiences that makes the Writing Program Graduate Assistant experience worthwhile in the end!
I agree. You are definitely not alone. I honestly can't imagine how much harder you have to work when it comes to adjusting to an entirely new system. Some good news is that we are a solid cohort and even if we can't resolve all of our issues, we have a place/space to be heard, which I think counts for something. I think if I knew what I know now about ID 601, I would tell myself that many of the class readings were actually resource material. They weren't meant (at least in my estimation) to be completely internalized in one semester, but rather to be used as resources to refer back to as we continue our teaching experience. Right now, we are in survival mode, but within a couple of semesters we may feel like exploring a new teaching concept or grading style. Once we know what works for us, I think/hope the materials we have in our personal libraries from ID 601 will be tools we can use from an ever expanding toolbox.
ReplyDeleteAnother good point you bring up is about our area of study versus our area of teaching. I know it is pretty standard to have graduate students teach rhet/comp courses, because there are so many available sections and they are entry level courses that even inexperienced teachers can typically handle, but I would love the opportunity to get some experience in my own field, either through teaching or research.
Keep up the good work, Nilima!
Mow,
ReplyDeleteIt’s such a good reminder that even though we often feel as if we are all alone in our struggles, everyone else in our position is going through a similar journey. Sometimes I don’t know if I’d be able to make it through without talking out all of my experiences with someone else in our cohort or my mentor – as I remind my students when I have them do group work or it’s almost time for peer review, other people are our most valuable resource that we often forget about. From talking to several people I know who have been through any type of Master’s/Teaching assistantship program, I don’t think it’s easy for anyone, nor is anyone fully prepared to jump into it. We can all make it through!
I appreciated your reflection on lecturing versus more student-involved approaches like discussion or in-class activities. I’ll admit that my first instinct is often to throw together a PowerPoint too (and sometimes they’re appropriate and helpful), but learning about the student-focused approach in 601 has helped me to always rethink and see if I can disseminate that information through a more hands-on method that they’ll be more likely to remember (and see a practical application for). Just thinking back to undergrad, I know I remembered concepts and skills a lot better if we did an activity instead of just listening to the lecture.
-Jessie
Mow, I understand the struggle of not being a rhet/comp student. As a creative writer myself, with very little teaching background, I was definitely nervous coming in to this program knowing that I was going to be teaching 2 English classes. In 601, a lot of the theory material went over my head, and I feel like I'm just trying to stay on top of everything. My biggest struggle was finding out how to actually run a day-to-day class, with activities and different in class materials. Over the first few weeks, I have found a bit of a routine that works for me. Hopefully over time I will learn more tools and activities to use in the classroom! Maybe I can even find a way to incorporate creative writing into my class a bit. Who knows!
ReplyDeleteMy sis,
ReplyDeleteI always admire your honesty. I am glad to see how you are transitioning into a new stage of your grad student journey. I think we can all relate to your struggles in a different way. I consider that being a teacher is like an everlasting learning voyage. However, the most important thing I found out of this post is that you decided to be stronger than your struggles and strive to overcome them. I really believe that by the end of your master's at Ball State, you will be surprised to see how much you grew as a person and as a professional in two years. The things your are grappling with will become just memorable anecdotes in a few years. Then, I want to encourage you and all our colleagues to keep working hard and to always be intentional in your teaching.
Mow,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your openness and honesty. Grad school has been hard for us all, but I cannot imagine the added difficulties that come with immersing yourself in a new culture. I am so proud of you for all that you are doing and know that you are doing a great job.
We all definitely feel the struggle and that's what I have really appreciated about reading First Semester. I think this book has given us all a lot of validation in having someone say "hey, you're not alone in what you're feeling." I think having everyone teach rhet/comp is complicated, as the majority of our cohort is not in that field of study. I think first-year composition can be a sort of gateway into other courses in high education, but I think it would be nice for people who are studying things like linguistics or literature to be able to get experience teaching in their fields.
Mow,
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad that Resitano has helped you to gain confidence so far. I feel similarly. It has been refreshing to read that other students in other programs are struggling, just like we are--maybe even more so, due to a feeling of lack of preparation from their program.
Though I don't have the experience of being an international student in this program, I can relate to you in that I also have little background in composition. In my undergraduate program, my composition class was mainly focused on reading books and writing papers in response to them. Looking back, I'm not entirely sure what the goals of that class was. So, for many of us, it's difficult to learn about what composition is supposed to accomplish and teach to new students while we're learning about what ENG 103 and 104 are all about ourselves at the very same time.
I'm glad you're enjoying the experience of adjusting to learner-centered teaching. It's certainly a change from what you were describing. I think it's a bit of a newer concept in general, in that a lot of programs and universities still don't implement learner-centered teaching for the most part. It can be difficult to engage students in learner-centered teaching approaches when they aren't used to putting in as much work in the classroom. But ultimately, it can only benefit students if they're working actively in the classroom.
Thanks for sharing honestly, Mow. I'm glad this semester is looking up for you. Positive things are ahead!