How Graduate School Went... And Didn't.
How Graduate School Went... And Didn't.
Or, "I Went to Grad School, and All I Got Was This Stupid Master's Degree."
Yesterday was an auspicious date for two reasons. First, because it’s the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins. Second, because it’s the anniversary of when I got kicked out of my first student teaching placement. My friends and family and fellow parishioners know this already, but I never really brought it up much online before now. I just don’t like bringing my personal problems onto social media. But now I think I’m on the way to making peace with it.
I started graduate school about two years ago, after layoffs at my then-employer made me wonder if it would still be there in a year (it wasn’t; they moved out of state). I figured teaching would be a good way to put my skills to use, contribute to my community, and give my life a little more stability, where for years I’d mostly had low-paying office jobs.
And I’m glad I did go to grad school. I wound up learning a lot about education, literacy, and cognitive development. I got a chance to research the benefits of handwriting—and came away believing that by not teaching kids penmanship, we implicitly teach them not to value their own writing, or anyone else’s. I also had the benefit of starting grad school right when the Science of Reading movement was really kicking into high gear, with a teacher prep program that seemed interested in implementing it. I also worked as a student assistant the late Lucien Ellington for Education About Asia. If you search the archives, the articles I worked on (primarily with editing, though there’s one I cowrote with the editor) are in the Spring 2023 issue.
Then came student teaching.
I passed the assessments, got along with other faculty, and the students liked me. But then I got called into a meeting at the university, and they said my mentor had requested I not come back. The issue was "concerns" about my professionalism--basically some offhand comments I made that made me seem lazier than I actually am.
When I got there, I was told that my mentor had asked for me not to come back. I was kicked out of my first placement.
The following are the stated reasons:
After a particularly difficult day, I said something about wanting to take a break the next day. By which I meant I wanted to sit and observe.
When my mentor got sick and had to leave in the morning, the other teachers were talking at lunch about whether there’d be a substitute. I said, “Well, there better be a sub!”
During a meeting, I happened to be sitting next to the principal. She was talking about the letter grade system that Tennessee was about to implement for its schools. As it happened, I knew where to look up the existing scores, and brought them up on my laptop. She tried to get me to take it down, but I was oblivious.
The last straw: while my mentor was reprimanding a student, she caught me laughing. Not guffawing, more of a chuckle.
She also said I tended to seem flustered when I had to take over teaching at short notice.
All of these are fair criticisms. But here’s the real problem with all that: nobody had ever told me these things were a problem. I got almost no feedback from my mentor on this! The other teachers did mention the principal getting mad at me afterwards, but they were laughing about it. And my mentor did bring up my laughing, but did not say anything about reporting it, much less that it could derail my whole career.
I made it clear to the department heads that I did not get this feedback. The school never furnished any evidence that they provided me any. So they decided to let me proceed to my second placement.
This placement had its own problems. But I left on good terms. My second mentor is one of my references. I did not get a good evaluation from my clinical supervisor, but I was willing to accept it. She recommended another semester of student teaching, ideally at a single school. I was comfortable with that. And when the department heads requested another meeting, I told them so.
I also told them how I believed my anxiety going into it after what happened at my first placement interfered with my performance. Maybe I was too honest. Shortly afterwards, I got an email from the department saying they were counseling me out of the teacher preparation program. They “could not in good conscience” endorse me for certification. So I had to graduate without licensure, which I did in May.
I’ve been working as a substitute teacher since January, but that isn’t really viable long-term. I've worked as a sub since January, but it isn't really viable long-term. I've tried to get a teaching job so I could get job-embedded licensure at another university, but no offers have materialized. Right now I'm waiting to hear back on a non-teaching job I interviewed for last week.
So please pray for me—especially Tuesday, as that's my patron saint's feast day (St. Silouan the Athonite)—that I get hired soon.
And, at the risk of being a complete shill, it would really help me out to either buy one of my books or get a paid subscription to my Substack.
I'm not in any real danger or anything. No major health issues, and I'm paying the bills. Maybe I'll try again with teaching in a few years. But right now I really just need something more stable. I’m not asking for charity, just commerce. The more of my books you buy, the more that helps me with the mysterious, capricious algorithms and attracts more potential buyers, and I don’t have to bother you about it as much.
Who knows? I might even make a living.