Being a CT

Today, I was assigned a trainee. A pretty, fresh young girl of 23.

She was eager to please. The moment she saw me, she offered a few times to help carry my stuff. She seemed to be 'seasoned' in pleasing CTs (Cooperating Teachers). As a trainee about 8 years ago, I remember how I had asked my NIE friends for advice on how to please CTs as I was, and still am, very dense when it comes to being a man-pleaser.

I remember the well-meaning friend told me the 'tactics':

1) Ask your CT for advice on how to manage a class
Eg. "I am not good at classroom management. I see that you are very good at it. Your class listens to you when you speak. How do you do that? Can you teach me?"

2) Thank your CT for her advice. Whether it works or not, doesn't matter. Insist that it has worked.
Eg. "Thank you so much for your advice. It was very effective!"
I asked, like an ignorant child,"What if it doesn't work?"
He said,"Nevermind. Thank her and tell her that it works."

And one more that seems to be a common practice and taught by my more worldly elder sister:
3) Give your CT a present before you leave the school

But I don't need trainees to please me. No, it's not because I've a higher level of integrity than those superficial CTs.

But I had trodden the same path and know how much it takes just to pass the practicum.

I had a slave-driver CT who made me work like hell just to obtain a pass.

She gave me a D for classroom management when the students' Chinese teacher wanted to see them and they rushed to the door towards the end of the lesson.

She gave me a D for time management when I ended my lesson 5 minutes later. A friend doing practicum with me at the same school, with a different CT, ended her lesson 20 minutes later and wasn't penalised at all.

When I asked to observe her lessons beyond the Observation Week (usually, the first week is the Observation Week during which we get to follow our CTs and observe how they conduct lessons) to learn more from her, she said that she would want to observe me for the number of times I observe her.

She threatened to report me to the principal and vice principal when I casually mentioned that I didn't recite the pledge since I was not a citizen.

I conveyed my worries to a fellow trainee friend and she gave me her advice,"Don't let her have a hold on you over this. Most people will not make a big fuss over such a small matter, but since she is like that, don't let her do this to you. You can always treat reciting the pledge as singing a song. Go and tell her now, before she goes to the p and vp, that you've realised that what she said was right, and you will recite the pledge and sing the national anthem from now on."

I went to her and told her exactly what my friend taught me.

She looked at me with suspicions in her eyes,"Are you saying this because I said that I'm going to tell the p and vp about it?"

I gritted my teeth and replied,"No, but because I think that you are right after I think about it." That must have been the first lie I ever told in my life, just so that I could save my grade in a practicum. I'm sure if I had not told her that, she would have used this incident against me and flunk me then.

By failing a practicum, it would mean that I have to wait for another 6 months to do the next practicum, and pay the semestral fees through my nose, and have my graduation deferred.

It was the most torturous 6 weeks in my entire teaching life.

I don't know why a teacher, who is supposedly patient and kind, would do this to a trainee who has only the last lap to clear. Does it make her feel happy to see a trainee under you doing badly, or fail because of what you say?

I tell myself since then that I will never torture another fellow colleague-to-be if I ever have the chance to be a CT. It doesn't cost me anything to treat another human being nicely, or give her a Credit at least. Why must you make her work her ass off just so that she gets a Pass? I think you must be somewhat sick in the mind to do something so lowly to a trainee.

I'm all ready to give any trainee under me a grade better than Pass, even a Distinction if any other teacher would want to push for it, as long as they don't make serious mistakes during their practicum. I'm keenly aware that their practicum grades has a substantial impact on their Honours grading. I understand that to get at least a 2nd Upper Honours, they will need to get at least a Credit for their practicum.

I had another fellow NIE trainee who was also doing the Practicum with us. I don't label her as a 'friend' not because I treat her with disdain but because we were never close. She lied to the school (according to the supervisor), was late for school a few times, stood the supervisor up for her lesson observation, and didn't conduct a lesson fit for a formal observation.

Yeah, that I have to concede, that she probably deserved to fail. But sometimes I can't help but wonder if things could have been better if someone had talked to her to find out why she did the things she did and gave her good advice.

I just want to be a developmental and mentoring CT who doesn't stress a trainee out. I had been there once and didn't want another person to go through the hell that I did.