Days of Awe

I haven't been entirely honest with you.

While I say that I'm a teacher, I am in fact a co-teacher. I do not have my own classroom; instead, I'm one-half of a two-headed monster of educatifying. We're like Cerebus after a terrible guillotine accident, but less barking and more teaching.

This co-teacher of mine has been at WISoCA for more years than I have fingers and toes, so I'm in a sort of master-apprentice relationship. This has led to me learning a lot about the classroom, but it has also led to a number of problems.

Problem 1: Though I am a fully licensed teacher, students may be under the impression that I am merely a student teacher. We tried to nip this in the bud early, but it's not always easy to convince students of such things. They never have co-teachers, so they try to put the relationship within a framework they know, and the only framework they know is the teacher-student teacher.

Problem 2: Since it's not my classroom, I don't know the correct procedures for how the class should do things. I know how I would want things done, but I don't want to step on my co-teacher, Frau Funkenhaus's, toes. Frau has certain ways of doing things, and those ways are completely and totally acceptable. However, those are not the ways I would do things, and as such I'm always at a disadvantage when talking to students. Furthermore, as I don't have the sort of organic knowledge of processes necessary to talk candidly with students, I'm forced to send worried glances to Frau in order to get information about where we want students to write their names on their papers.

Problem 3: If I were running a classroom, it would basically be run completely different from how I am currently running it. While this may be a good way for me to see different teaching styles and to practice getting outside of my comfort zone, it will not prepare me for my own classroom (hopefully) next year. This is the big problem right now. Boo-hoo.