After receiving our grades, the three student teachers and their mentors went out to lunch at a nearby restaurant. It was supposed to be a fun time, but at least for me, the meal was hard to swallow. I nearly broke down in the classroom when Mrs. B gave me the bad news.about my grade. I don't think it would have mattered one scintilla, but Mrs. B ordered me to cut out the tears, and I did it in record time. You didn't disobey an OCS like Mrs. B. After all, she was now the master of my fate.
Back at college I had a full slate of classes and I walked through them in a haze of depression. I don't know what my parents or friends thought of my demeanor, but no one said anything encouraging. I probably seemed normal to them since depression was my norm. Still, although I pretty much told everyone about my lousy grade, I didn't put two and two together and arrive at a helpful conclusion. I was stubbornly persistent in that if I had made it through all those years of classes, I wasn't going to be cheated at the chance to get a real live teaching job. It didn't help that two of my friends seemed to glide through their student teaching assignments with little or no difficulty. It was hard to think of myself as a second-rater when for most of my academic life I had excelled.
I got my chance to repair some of the damage after I blurted out my story to the teacher of my educational seminar class. She was sympathetic and agreed with me regarding the lousy prospects of getting a job offer. She encouraged me to contact the college supervisor, call her up and convince her to change the grade to a B-minus. That way it would go on my permanent record as a B. To make a long story short, I followed her advice and had my grade changed. I had to grovel, but it wasn't the first time.
I've always been a pragmatist so I congratulated myself for taking swift action and remedying the situation. Almost as a reward, I received a job offer to teach third grade from Woodbridge Schools. So I scrapped my plans to go to upper New York state as a summer camp counselor and stayed in New Jersey to prepare for the Big Day.
Well, the Big Day came and went, and I realized almost immediately that I didn't love this job. And to turn in a great performance you had to love teaching or at least love the kids. More and more I flashed back to Mrs. B and her comments. Just because she had OCS didn 't mean that everything that came out of her mouth didn't apply to me. In fact as two years went by and then three and four years, I gradually concluded that I was not a good fit for teaching. Mrs. B knew it five years before, and I was just accepting it now. No one was chasing me from the profession, and all my supervisory evaluations had been excellent, but I knew that Mrs. B had been on target. So I resigned.
Yeah, Mrs. B had OCS and maybe it was a coincidence that her temperament and personality helped mold me into a so-so teacher, but I had proof now that she had been correct. So the lesson for me was what? Never discount the feedback of an OCS adult. Sometimes, just sometimes, the OCS adult is right.
Next time: My Funniest OCS Adventure
Back at college I had a full slate of classes and I walked through them in a haze of depression. I don't know what my parents or friends thought of my demeanor, but no one said anything encouraging. I probably seemed normal to them since depression was my norm. Still, although I pretty much told everyone about my lousy grade, I didn't put two and two together and arrive at a helpful conclusion. I was stubbornly persistent in that if I had made it through all those years of classes, I wasn't going to be cheated at the chance to get a real live teaching job. It didn't help that two of my friends seemed to glide through their student teaching assignments with little or no difficulty. It was hard to think of myself as a second-rater when for most of my academic life I had excelled.
I got my chance to repair some of the damage after I blurted out my story to the teacher of my educational seminar class. She was sympathetic and agreed with me regarding the lousy prospects of getting a job offer. She encouraged me to contact the college supervisor, call her up and convince her to change the grade to a B-minus. That way it would go on my permanent record as a B. To make a long story short, I followed her advice and had my grade changed. I had to grovel, but it wasn't the first time.
I've always been a pragmatist so I congratulated myself for taking swift action and remedying the situation. Almost as a reward, I received a job offer to teach third grade from Woodbridge Schools. So I scrapped my plans to go to upper New York state as a summer camp counselor and stayed in New Jersey to prepare for the Big Day.
Well, the Big Day came and went, and I realized almost immediately that I didn't love this job. And to turn in a great performance you had to love teaching or at least love the kids. More and more I flashed back to Mrs. B and her comments. Just because she had OCS didn 't mean that everything that came out of her mouth didn't apply to me. In fact as two years went by and then three and four years, I gradually concluded that I was not a good fit for teaching. Mrs. B knew it five years before, and I was just accepting it now. No one was chasing me from the profession, and all my supervisory evaluations had been excellent, but I knew that Mrs. B had been on target. So I resigned.
Yeah, Mrs. B had OCS and maybe it was a coincidence that her temperament and personality helped mold me into a so-so teacher, but I had proof now that she had been correct. So the lesson for me was what? Never discount the feedback of an OCS adult. Sometimes, just sometimes, the OCS adult is right.
Next time: My Funniest OCS Adventure
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