The Uprising

I have another student teacher. She is a hard-working and dedicated young lady who will be an asset to education when she enters the workforce.

The other day, she was asking me if I had ever had a student teacher that I did not pass.

I have, sadly, had a few who did not make the cut.

Well, she was dying to know why so I told her the following story:

(Names have been changed to protect the innocent.)

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful and innovative teacher named Neda Ele. Neda taught in a quiet school in a small village in Far Far Away Land. The students were perfect, the classroom was neat, and all the teachers were happy, well-paid, and content with their lives.

One sunny morning, a student teacher came to work in Neda's room. Neda welcomed her with open arms and an open heart.

Neda realized that much of student teaching is about learning classroom management skills. Without effective classroom management, no learning can occur. Neda worked hard to share all her knowledge, tricks, tips, and advice with her student teacher.

But to no avail. You see, her student teacher had children of her own and felt her own techniques were better.

She was wrong.

After weeks of practice, weeks of work, weeks of imploring the student teacher to remain positive with the students, weeks of reminders, and weeks of heavy drinking on Neda's part, the time arrived when the student teacher was supposed to lead the class on her own for five days.

Neda was reluctant to leave her students in the hands of such an ineffective, negative student teacher; however the student teacher's university supervisor implored Neda to give the woman a chance.

So Neda relented and entrusted her class to the student teacher.

She was wrong.

Within thirty minutes of leaving her classroom, Neda watched as her student teacher marched past the lounge window with little Ralphie's arm gripped tightly in her hand.

Neda wondered to herself, "If she's down here and I'm down here, who's up there with the kids?!?!"

Neda raced up to her classroom to find the school psychologist standing just outside her door, fists on her hips, observing the chaos inside. The psych had been walking by when she heard the roars from room 12, looked in and saw kids everywhere but no teacher. She demanded an explanation.

Neda did not have one.

Within a few minutes, the student teacher returned sans Ralphie, who had been left in the office for safe-keeping, and she explained what happened.

You see, the student teacher had spelled out PHYSICAL EDUCATION on the board, and every time she needed to correct student behavior, she erased a letter. Within twenty minutes, the class had lost all seventeen letters of PHYSICAL EDUCATION.

(Kinda the opposite of Positive Reinforcement...)

Well, her gun was empty now and Ralphie knew it so he took the opportunity to start The Uprising. He began chanting:

 "No PE, NO Work! No PE, No Work!"

Soon, the entire class joined in, fists pounding on their desks and voices raised in protest.

The student teacher went over to Ralphie's desk and demanded he stop chanting, but Ralphie hopped out of his seat and ran away.

So she chased him.

Ralphie ran around the room,

and she chased him around the room. 

He ran.

She chased.

(I feel I should insert here that she had a bit of a limp that became more pronounced as she ran around, making her look a bit like Igor as she lumbered after a nimble little kid. The other students thought this was hysterical.)

Finally, she somehow caught up with him, grabbed him by the arm and dragged him down to the Principal's office...

...leaving the remaining students in chaos and unattended.

The student teacher was told to go home. She would not be returning to Neda's room for reasons I think are clear...

...to everyone BUT the student teacher.

Neda went on to have a wonderful school year and she and her students lived happily ever after.

Oh, and the student teacher?

She had to repeat her semester of student teaching in another school, graduated from the teaching credential program (that Neda STILL won't take student teachers from anymore) and got hired in a private Christian school.

She called Neda not long after she was hired to say she had been suspended for teaching "inappropriate" math lessons to the students. Students were asked to create math problems that when solved on a calculator would make words.

Well, not only did some students create math problems that made inappropriate words...

...she hung them on the wall because, and I quote: "They ARE just words after all."

She was wrong.