In this chapter, Frank McCourt does a great job of describing through his own personal experiences the many road blocks and barriers that are put in our paths on our ways to becoming teachers. He talks of June, who he had a crush on, was easily led on by, and then had his heart broken by. That provided him with emotional stress and lessened his will to move foward in the education process. He then tells stories of his teacher's interviews where the interviewers made him feel worthless because of his responses instead of helping him through the interview and making it less nervewracking. And when he gets the certification, he tells of how hard it is to find a job because of the discrimination against his Irish Brogue. This leads me to my discussion questions on Chapter 3...
What, if any, roadblocks have any of you faced along the path to your teaching degrees? Only post what you feel comfortable posting.
What did each of you do to overcome those roadblocks and continue on in your education, remaining focused on the "light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak?
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What, if any, roadblocks have any of you faced along the path to your teaching degrees? Only post what you feel comfortable posting.
The biggest roadblock that I have probably faced during this whole process is myself. I am infamous for doubting myself and for lacking self-confidence. For the longest time, I didn't even know what I wanted to do with my life. I thought about going into the medical profession, but then later decided that teaching might suit me better. Now that I'm looking at going to grad school, however, I'm again considering going back to my first choice. I guess we'll see how it goes. At some point though, no matter what choice I make, I know that I want to teach English abroad some day.
The second roadblock that I faced was probably just applying to the teacher education program (and to college, in general). I hate writing personal essays and doing interviews, again, because I tend to dislike whatever I produce.
Finally, the last major roadblock that I've had to face was the mentoring teacher I was assigned during Intermediate Field this semester. She was overbearing and belittling both to myself and to her students. Also, she was extremely lazy and her methods for teaching ESL were severely outdated. Just to give you an idea of how bad she was, imagine having to do nothing else but silent reading every Friday! Despite all of these character flaws, I still tried to get along with the woman until she started scolding me in front of her colleagues for things I did not do. Needless to say, we wound up not getting along, and I was forced to switch mentors halfway through my fieldwork. Luckily, my next mentor and I got along very well, and everything turned out fine.
What did each of you do to overcome those roadblocks and continue on in your education, remaining focused on the "light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak?
To overcome myself, I simply try to think things through, to take things one day at a time, and to eventually let things go. I will probably never be one hundred percent cured of my insecurities, but I can sure try.
To overcome the dispute I had with my mentoring teacher, I really just had to think about what was best for me. In the end, that meant being brave enough to talk to her supervisor about our problems.
I have to agree with Laura. The biggest roadblock I've faced on my way to become a teacher is called college. Coming out of high school, I was gung-ho, ready to rock the teaching world. And then I came here, and found out how much of a pain in the ass the entire process was.
Looking back, I may not have been ready for the whole college experience. I did well my first semester, but then crashed during my second semester. I've spent every year since then climbing out of the 2.0 hole that I'd dug myself into.
Everything that has to do with education had really soured my taste for the field. The relentless bullshit that we have to go through, has not been fun to say the least. Once in a while, you'll find a really great teacher that influences you positively, but the general education at this institution for the most part blows. That hasn't helped me any.
I went through a pretty rough bout of depression about a year and a half ago. I was severely depressed, had to go through therapy and everything. I guess coming through that was another major roadblock in my process. I basically had to repeat the entire semester that I missed while I was ill, setting my graduation date back even further.
Well, I'm almost out of here now, and I'm once again ready to rock.
Hello Ben,
I'm glad you were so forthcoming in your response. It really opened you up and made you a real person to me.
Anyway, I'm sorry you haven't had the best experience in college. Being someone that is prone to depression, I too know what that feels like. In high school, I had to go through therapy just like you. It was embarrassing, and in the end, it didn't really help me. Depression was something that I had to go through and solve on my own, and even now, I don't think I'm one hundred percent cured. It's really tough. I'm glad, however, that you managed to pull through it all. You always seem very happy in class when I see you. =)
I think the biggest roadblock that I had to overcome was me. I have always been an over scheduled, busy, no time for anything mess. On top of that, I have been working with kids full time since I graduated high school. So, my eagerness to get into the field that I was already in made me being still in college that much more frustrating. I knew I was good at what I was doing, but wasn’t allowed to go out there and do it.
I overcame this challenge by just going on. I still am teaching right now and am still in school. Rather than be stubborn with my learning of teaching, I adapted what my professors were talking about into my current situation.
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