For my "Methods" class, which is one of the few courses I've taken in the past 15 months that is actually required by the state, I have to have a "field experience" that people at the university seem to be calling an "internship." I need to log a total of 60 hours in a classroom with a mentor teacher, observing, maybe doing some tutoring, and then teaching a one-week unit under the supervision of both my mentor teacher and my Methods professor.
The Office of Field Services placed me in an urban high school that is apparently a "school within a school," i.e., it used to be huge and have its own building and in the meantime it occupies space along with several other schools, each of which presumably has its own administration and policies.
My professor and the placement office both emphasized that I should get in touch with my mentor teacher RIGHT AWAY, and one of my class assignments was to write a draft letter. But I didn't receive a phone number or an e-mail address for my mentor teacher - just the school's phone number. I got the e-mail from the placement office on Friday afternoon and called right away; no answer. I called five more times today, Monday. Finally someone answered who didn't seem to have a clue about how to get in touch with my mentor teacher. After several minutes of back-and-forthing with her supervisor (who apparently didn't want to speak to me directly), she finally gave me an e-mail address and I shot off the mail to my mentor teacher.
It bounced back. Not a very good impression.
Posts mit dem Label teacher training werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Posts mit dem Label teacher training werden angezeigt. Alle Posts anzeigen
Montag, 26. September 2011
Freitag, 6. Mai 2011
Intro
I'm a native New Yorker and a graduate of The High School of Performing Arts in Acting. From 1978-80 I attended the Juilliard Theatre Center and then went to Bennington College, where I majored in Literature & Languages (emphasis: Creative Writing) and minored in Music. After graduation I worked for a couple of years as an editorial assistant in New York, the classic English major job, and then got into the Iowa Writers' Workshop. I started doing journalism at Iowa, becoming the main arts critic for The Daily Iowan, and stayed in Iowa City after graduation to work at the University of Iowa Foundation as a staff writer and to finish my first novel. Eventually I moved back to New York and started freelancing, which I've been doing ever since.
After a couple of years back in the New York metro area I met a German guy in a bar across from Lincoln Center and fell in love, which might be regarded as a strange move for a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx. It was right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and we started a long-distance relationship. After 18 months I moved to Berlin; the relationship fell apart soon after, but I had started singing in "kneipen" (pubs) and formed a band so I stayed. I worked as an English teacher, correspondent and music teacher as well as gigging regularly in Berlin and environs. I was one of the first Western performers to work with East German musicians, and we toured the now-defunct East German youth club circuit for a few years.
In 1993 the former "Radio In the American Sector" (RIAS) television news station was taken over by Deutsche Welle TV, the German equivalent of the BBC World Service. I started working there as a translator and voiceover specialist, and eventually worked my way up to producing English-language adaptations of half-hour documentary programs on everything from the history of Santa Claus to the science of aging.
I met my now ex-husband at a meditation weekend in the Bavarian Woods (and thereby hangs a tale, but it's not one I tell much anymore). He lived in a small mountain village outside of the town of Rosenheim, about halfway between Munich and Salzburg, and I moved there full-time when we got married. Soon afterward, I became the German correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter. At the same time I was still teaching music and recording my own songs as well as working for Deutsche Welle.
In 2003, at the age of 42, I became a mother. As is so often the case, the stress of parenting put enormous strain on my marriage. I moved to Ohio with my daughter in June 2009, to a place that was about a 10-minute walk from my brother and his wife's house.
After an adjustment year, I started the post-baccalaureate teacher licensure program at Cleveland State University. That's where I am now. I still teach piano and early childhood music, and I'm the Song Leader at Fairmount Temple in Beachwood, OH. I also sub, although not as regularly now that I'm in school. I've recently written the first draft of a young people's novel telling the Exodus story from the point of view of two 12 year-old Israelite twins who are about to become slaves to Pharaoh. I'm calling it THE GOSHEN TRILOGY, and planning to e-publish in the fall once I've had a chance to revise it.
My goal is to be a high school English teacher. I'm thinking of this blog as an unstructured opportunity to reflect on teacher training in this country at a time when education is such a controversial topic. Please feel free to comment, to "like" the blog or to contact me on Facebook.
After a couple of years back in the New York metro area I met a German guy in a bar across from Lincoln Center and fell in love, which might be regarded as a strange move for a nice Jewish girl from the Bronx. It was right after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and we started a long-distance relationship. After 18 months I moved to Berlin; the relationship fell apart soon after, but I had started singing in "kneipen" (pubs) and formed a band so I stayed. I worked as an English teacher, correspondent and music teacher as well as gigging regularly in Berlin and environs. I was one of the first Western performers to work with East German musicians, and we toured the now-defunct East German youth club circuit for a few years.
In 1993 the former "Radio In the American Sector" (RIAS) television news station was taken over by Deutsche Welle TV, the German equivalent of the BBC World Service. I started working there as a translator and voiceover specialist, and eventually worked my way up to producing English-language adaptations of half-hour documentary programs on everything from the history of Santa Claus to the science of aging.
I met my now ex-husband at a meditation weekend in the Bavarian Woods (and thereby hangs a tale, but it's not one I tell much anymore). He lived in a small mountain village outside of the town of Rosenheim, about halfway between Munich and Salzburg, and I moved there full-time when we got married. Soon afterward, I became the German correspondent for The Hollywood Reporter. At the same time I was still teaching music and recording my own songs as well as working for Deutsche Welle.
In 2003, at the age of 42, I became a mother. As is so often the case, the stress of parenting put enormous strain on my marriage. I moved to Ohio with my daughter in June 2009, to a place that was about a 10-minute walk from my brother and his wife's house.
After an adjustment year, I started the post-baccalaureate teacher licensure program at Cleveland State University. That's where I am now. I still teach piano and early childhood music, and I'm the Song Leader at Fairmount Temple in Beachwood, OH. I also sub, although not as regularly now that I'm in school. I've recently written the first draft of a young people's novel telling the Exodus story from the point of view of two 12 year-old Israelite twins who are about to become slaves to Pharaoh. I'm calling it THE GOSHEN TRILOGY, and planning to e-publish in the fall once I've had a chance to revise it.
My goal is to be a high school English teacher. I'm thinking of this blog as an unstructured opportunity to reflect on teacher training in this country at a time when education is such a controversial topic. Please feel free to comment, to "like" the blog or to contact me on Facebook.
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