This summer, I worked as a summer school teacher for Holly Springs High School, teaching Biology I to five students. At first thought, I did not believe working with such a small classroom size during a two-month period (where the students & teachers are overwhelmed with work) would be representative of the regular school year. I did, however, believe that the experience would be a great precursor to the regular school year, giving myself and other teachers the opportunity to deal with classroom situations on a small scale, before having to deal with those same problems with a much larger classroom size. So, I believe that being a summer school teacher in itself was very helpful in ironing out those "wrinkles" before the Fall.
Another aspect of this summer that I found helpful was having 2nd and 3rd year teachers, who have been where we've been, helping us to make the same transitions to teaching as they have. They have been readily available for any and all questions relating to the classroom. They even give advice on how to maintain one's sanity outside of the classroom, so that one's work and personal life will be manageable and exciting. If there's order in your life, there's order in how you teach your students about life; if there's chaos in your life, there's most likely chaos in your classroom. I am very grateful for being able to learn these lessons.
That was the good. Now, here's the bad and the ugly. What I found most displeasing about my experience this summer had more to do with an obvious disorganization within MTC itself. I understand that there are constant changes being made for the betterment of the program, but sometimes I strongly felt that the needs of the teachers were lost in translation. My suggestions for improvement with MTC are as follows:
1. The teachers should be mailed all of the information they need to know about the program, as well as all the information they need to know about applying for acceptance into and financial aid from Ole Miss. Teachers who have been out of college for over a year should be especially advised about how to complete their application processes, considering it may be slightly different from teachers entering the program right out of college.
2. MTC should be as punctual with its deadlines (Ex: administering stipends) as the teachers are expected to be with their deadlines.
These are the problems that I personally experienced with MTC (and am currently recovering from). I dedicated a lot of time and energy- that I rarely had- trying to deal with the aforementioned problems. MTC itself is challenging and time consuming; with the other problems combined, I had a headache for a full month and a half (I stopped caring after that).
Now, these are just suggestions! But I guarantee that if solved, the next incoming teachers would be able to focus on the thing that really matters: teaching effectively.
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