This blog is going to be a little difficult to write. Ever since May I have been personally struggling with my educational status but I feel like if I just put it all out there, I will feel better about where I am in life.
So as you may have gathered from the title, I am currently a college drop out. I never in a million years thought that would be me. Ever since high school I wanted to be the first kid in the family to go to college and complete my degree. Now at that time I didn’t really know what I wanted to do but I did know I wanted that overpriced piece of paper. By the time I applied to my college I decided I wanted to be an elementary school teacher.
I entered my first semester of college in August 2013. I was not used to pacing myself throughout the day and the week and I really slacked off when I shouldn’t have during my whole freshman year. I did better during my second semester than I did during my first semester but my GPA was barely above a 2.0 at the start of fall 2014. I was so mortified that I had done so poorly. Until fall 2013 I had NEVER failed an entire class that I had to retake. I was so embarrassed that I didn’t even tell my parents, I just registered for the classes I failed and tried again the next semester.
Finally after my “buffer” year, I actually got serious about school. I signed myself up for 19 credit hours, and for anyone that doesn’t know anything about school… Yes, that is a lot to take in college. The normal amount taken is usually between 12 and 15 hours. Anyways I took 7 classes: Sociology, English 1102, Chem 1, Chem 1 Lab, American Government, Education 2120, and Education 2130.
Now two of these classes were retakes; It was my second time attempting Education 2130 and my third time attempting 2120. Yep, you read that right: it was my third semester in a row taking Education 2120 because I failed it two times in a row. Like I said before I was pretty embarrassed so I kept it on the DL. The worst part of it all is that the classes I was retaking were the only classes I had so far that were related to my major. Like really, GET IT TOGETHER CAROL!
Now I do have to defend myself at this point with the second attempt of Education 2120; during Spring semester 2013 I became a live in nanny for two beautiful little girls but it did make that class and only that class difficult to attend. And yes I know what you’re thinking: “Just get a babysitter!” or “Why didn’t you just bring them to class with you?” Let me just tell you that I did get a babysitter if they were available but this was in the middle of the day on Tuesdays and babysitters were hard to come by and on the second point, trust me those girls were wild and free spirits and there was no way they would be contained for 2 1/2 hours during that class. Okay, back to the defense. Due to my circumstances changing mid semester by becoming a nanny, I tried multiple times to contact my professor to explain the situation and to see if there was anything I could do to make up for the lack of my presence in the class. I never got a response from that professor and I was just out of luck when it came to that one. As for Education 2130 the only defense I can offer is that it was my very first fully online class and remembering to log on and remembering due dates by myself just wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be.
Back to the story. So this really crazy 19 hour semester was somehow a success. I made an A in every class except sociology where I made a B and at that point in the semester with that class, it felt as good as an A. So after this semester I was kinda back on track for getting into Teachers Ed (especially since I passed my major related classes) and I took on more classes than normal. The next two semesters went just as well. I still took on heavy loads each semester to make sure that I stayed on track for graduation. I took two sciences when my advisor said I shouldn’t burden myself, I had it all down and I did everything relatively well in that final stretch before teachers ed.
Finally towards the end of Fall 2015 semester I was able to apply for Teachers Ed and I was accepted into that program. That was one of the greatest feelings in the world. I had made it into the program, I was going to learn to be a teacher, I was going to graduate in two years, and I was going to be a teacher. Yall. I wish I could go back to that day and remember the sense of pure joy and accomplishment I felt.
Going into the Spring 2016 semester was literally the most nerve wrecking thing I had ever experienced up to that point in my life. The people I would be in class with were the people I would be with for the next two years as we became teachers. These classes that I was taking were make or break and everyone that I knew who had already been through the program said it was super hard and there was one specific professor that you did not want on your bad side. Well that particular professor was the first professor that we would meet that semester. For the sake of this blog we well call them Professor Grey. Professor Grey seemed very nice on our first day but you could tell by a certain look in her eye that she was indeed just as intimidating as everyone said she was. That would make this class and semester an interesting one for me. Anyway, our other professors were really cool and we all liked the right away. Everyday we were all together from Teaching Children to Read, Phys Ed, Math, Creative Activities, all the way to Tech 21. The most taxing classes were teaching children to read and creative activities because those were practicum classes. We had to learn how to write lesson plans and that was one of the most difficult things.
So the first part of the semester went relatively well. The assignments were good, I was good with all of the professors, and everything was pretty good. The next part is where things got really sticky. We had to start our placements with our cooperating teachers. I was placed in a 3rd grade classroom. From the first day, I thought I would really get it along with my cooperating teacher because she was obsessed with Harry Potter just like I was and she was into another hobby like I was but that I won’t mention so her identity stays kinda anonymous. So based on that from my first day I really thought it was going to be a great semester. Well it turned out to not be so great because on the first day of CRCT I had no clue what to do. I was a moron and decided not to go to the school at all because if I had, I wouldn’t have been able to spend any time with my teacher or my students and I could have sworn that Professor Grey told us that our hours did not count if we were not with students or our teachers. No one told me what I should be doing during testing so I wasn’t going up there to spend three hours in the library doing literally nothing. But that was obviously the wrong decision and the wrong perspective to have because I got in SO much trouble for it. And before you get too far with the thought, “Well why didn’t you ask what you were supposed to do?” let me just say that I did; I asked Professor Grey and my cooperating teacher at least twice and neither told me what I was supposed to do, they each told me to ask the other because they didn’t know.
After the first testing day fiasco, I had to have a meeting with Professor Grey. That was probably worse than the feeling of failing a class. She said to me that she was very disappointed in my performance in my placement and that from the beginning of the semester she had expected so much more from me. She told me that I had already missed my allotted amount of time for the semester and I would fail if I missed another day. She called me highly unprofessional; which let me just say that I had never done any of that before and at the time I was doing all I knew to do to be professional. After saying all of that and tearing me down pretty low, Professor Grey asked if I was sure that I really wanted to be a teacher. That question hurt really bad because there was nothing more that I wanted.
I tried to move on and I tried to be as professional as possible after that meeting. I didn’t miss another day. I taught every single lesson that we were supposed to teach which is more than some others can say. I did all that I had to do to make it through to the end of the semester. Of course there was another stumbling block which was my cooperating teacher. Turns out that she was really good friends with Professor Grey and I found out that they were talking about me via email. Yall. What the what?! I taught my lessons, I took critiques from my cooperating teacher. I did the best I knew how to do at the time. So luckily I was able to make it to the end and then on the last day of the semester, I got roasted by Professor Grey again. I had to print out a TON of stuff to put in my portfolio that was due that day. I had to compete for the school printers with everyone else that was printing stuff out for their last classes as well. Well I forgot to get a book that I needed for class so after printing everything out for class I had to run back to my car and then haul off to class. I was about 5 minutes late to class. A hopeful future professor was up giving a mock lesson to us when I walked in so I technically didn’t miss anything. As I was sitting listening to this mock lesson, two of my classmates walk in 30 minutes late. After the presentation my professor came by and collected out literature circle assignments and she stopped at me and said that she needed to speak to me after class. I knew I had done something awful then. We all had to go to her car to put our portfolios in her car. I was the last one as I knew she wanted to talk. As I approached her and her vehicle, she asked me why I was late and I was honest with her and she told me that she had told me that I wasn’t allowed to miss anymore at all (missing is not the same as being late in my book so I didn’t know that she meant I couldn’t be late either.) and then she told me that I would have to sign a contract to go into block 2. As I placed my portfolio into her trunk, she took a tone with me and asked “Do you even have everything you need in that portfolio?” It took every ounce of strength and patience I had to not be rude to her when she said that to me. Instead, I cried on my entire trek across campus to my second class for the day.
Somehow I managed to pass Professor Grey’s class by the skin of my teeth with a C. Every other class was good to go. I never heard from Grey about signing a contract so I was ready to go into block 2 with a clean slate.
Thanks for reading part 1. I’ll bring part 2 to yall in a couple of days. And let me just also say that this is not a blog of my playing the victim. This is just what I personally experienced and how it all made me feel at that time. And looking back now I wish there were things I could have done differently but hindsight is 20/20.
kathudgens 