The Midterm

So today was the day of my student teacher's midterm. We met with her supervisor and the two of us and we go over her performance as a whole this far. I was super excited and dreading it a little because here was my chance to really lay it all out for her with someone else there to back me up. I had an entire "speech" prepared to tell her about the two things that she really needed to work on with examples for when she gave an excuse about why she didn't do it. She is the queen of excuses let me just tell you.

So before that meeting we had a site leadership meeting where a representative of each grade level comes together to have a meeting with our principal. She shows up late (on her midterm day let me remind you) to this meeting. Aside from the fact that I have a very low tolerance for tardiness (espcially chronic tardiness) she walks in late to a meeting with the guy that has the potential to hire her. If anything she should have been 10 minutes early. So that didn't start the morning off super.

Back to the midterm. We go in and I am all set and ready to lay it down for her. Her supervisor started right in and said that we noticed that she didn't handle stress very well (that was a nice way of saying she is snotty when we give her suggestions) and asked if everything was ok at home. She immediately got this look on her face like I should know what the hell is going on...my intern hasn't said anything to me that something was wrong at home. This was my intern's response:

"well yeah it's fine...but this is the first time Angie is going to hear this but I went to the Dr. on Monday and I am pregnant!"

The only thought that instantaneously went through my head was FUCK! I know I should be happy for her and her husband but she already doesn't take criticism well or even simple suggestions...add pregnant hormones in with that and I should have gray hairs by the end of April. How am I supposed to drop this massive bomb of badassness (you like the word) and tell her how to be a better teacher after that comment? Yeah she took the wind out of my sails and depleated my speech right out the window. I did however, stay strong and still tell her that she can't take everything so personal. If the kids don't get it, it't not always her fault. Maybe it's just really hard and they need more practice. If they are trying their very very hardest, you can't get frustrated and upset with the kids. They struggle with reading and just because it came easy for her it doesn't for these two that she gets upset with (she informed us that this was the reason she gets frustrated because she doesn't understand why it is hard).

After the initial shock of hearing that on top of dealing with her being difficult to work with at times, I got over it and realized that I was happy for her. She is happy to be pregnant but at the same time her and her husband just moved into a one bedroom apartment and while they have talked about kids, and are ok with having them now, now just wasn't the very best time so I can see why she would be very stressed out. Plus this is going to make getting a job difficult for her because it is going to be her first year and she is going to have to take 8 weeks off. Your first year is hard and having a baby will make it even harder.

Then she said that the kids couldn't give her more than two books at a time because she doesn't want to kill her baby. I understand she doesnt' need to be lifting a lot of things that are heavy (she works at a warehouse and is going to have to really cut back on her lifting there) but seriously three science books are not going to strain the baby.

You can now see how I am excited for her and also dreading this. She is full of excuses now as it is and I can just hear why she can't do something now because of her baby.