I think I've figured it out. I think the morning mentor has a "personality disorder," or some such problem. I don't know what one would call this, but lemmie 'splain, and it should become clear.
Sometimes she acts very strangely, but one would have to spend a lot of time with her to see it. I happen to spend that time with her, so I see it.
It is spring break now. Today was the last day of classes for the students. We teachers have a work-day tomorrow.
Anyway, with the students out for over a week, there was no point in starting a new lesson or unit today. They wouldn't remember it by the time they got back anyway. I had come to a point in my current unit on business letter writing to make a logical stop, but really couldn't figure out what we'd do today. Half the students are already gone, anyway, so what would be the point in trying to teach?
Last night at parent-teacher conferences, I asked MM (morning mentor) if we could have a game day. I had already asked students to bring their board games. She said she thought that would be a fine idea. I made sure to stress that we would play word games, to keep it English-related. That was great, MM said. We could put the radio on as well, I said. Why not? MM said.
Today, she did a 180 for no reason. When class started, I put the radio on. Without saying a word, she kept getting up to turn it down until finally she just turned it off. None of us knew what to say, so we said nothing.
I saw her sitting at the computer desk with a pad and clipboard. A few minutes into the period, I said, "whoops--can't forget attendance!" and took roll by sight. She wrote on her clipboard that it took me until 15 mins. into class to take attendance, when in the past she has assured me more than once that it doesn't matter if I take roll at the end of the period, so long at it gets taken down before class ends. Then she wrote down that I had no lesson plan for game day. Lesson plan?
The students forgot to bring their games, so I had them start writing clues for Pictionary while I sent another student to the library to check out some games for us like Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit. She wrote down that I was unprepared, and had no idea what to do.
She wrote a few other contradictory things down, but I can't remember them now--it's been two 13 hour days in a row. But things she had told me were fine were being counted against me today, for no reason.
Second hour is planning period, and that's when she quietly but irritatedly "reamed" me. She challenged what I had "bothered to learn" in my program. She said I seemed not to know very much about teaching literature, which I don't teach for her anyway, and which she's never observed me teaching. I told her I didn't know much--wasn't that why I was here? To learn how?
She got on my case about not writing lesson plans every day, when she had told me previously not to write lesson plans. She reiterated her much different student teaching program, which had her write lesson plans every day. Mine did not, but I write a damned good lesson plan, and have been told so by more than one expert, including her.
I have told her before that my program was heavy on educational theory, but light on practical applications. She began questioning--grilling--me about my previous semesters of observation. Didn't I have to write lesson plans and teach them during that? Yes, I said: I had to write and teach two plans the first semester, and four to six the second one. She didn't believe me.
Why, she demanded to know, did I know how to teach writing so well, but couldn't seem to manage teaching reading? I told her I have been a self-taught writer for thirty years now, and I know writing. I don't know how one teaches reading, exactly, but I learn more about doing it every day, and again, isn't that what I'm here for?
Didn't I learn how to teach reading in college? I read, didn't I? Surely I could teach what I had been taught? Didn't I learn the strategies while I was performing them? Well, yes, but I was learning them, not learning how to teach them, and learning them had all my attention at the time, thanks. Besides, I haven't been in an English classroom as a student in two years now. I've had my mind on learning other things, I told her, and I'm also a little bit overwhelmed and exhausted at the moment.
She asked me "How long are you going to keep scapegoating your program and refusing to accept responsibility for this yourself?" It went on like this for the entire 55 minutes of planning period. She stayed mad at me all morning long, leaving me in my classes alone without one word of where she was going--strictly against the rules of the program, and she knows that.
By afternoon, she was her usual kind, cheerful, helpful self.
So now what? I just know in my gut there is something wrong with this lady's head. When I first met her, she made a big, big deal about this episode when she got hit in the head, hard, with a basketball, a few years ago. It left her with a closed brain injury and some memory loss. Sometimes she can't remember words she wants to use, or facts she knows as well as her own name. But then she also sometimes does this personality 180. This is not the first time by any means.
What should I do, if anything? Her evaluation will determine if I pass, if I graduate, for heaven's sake! If she writes it during one of her Dr. Jekyll moments, I'm okay, but if she's Mr. Hyde, I'm screwed.
How do I tell TPTB that one of their veteran teachers occasionally goes off her nut?
