Tired and emotional?

29th March 2010 - Laura observes me teaching the Monday Sure Start Adult Literacy class. As she's observing in the first half and assessing a student taking an Entry Level 1 Test in the second half, I am definitely teaching independently.
Basically, I put into practice everything I've been told by Jen about the Numeracy class. I think the session is one of the best I've taught: although only three students show up (three are taking tests and two are ill) so I have to revise the small groups (and therefore differentiation) down into one group, they work well together, the activities (starting with a great kinaesthetic one!) engage them and we're all in the flow for most of the time.
I get a "strong" Merit (Grade 2) from Laura, but not a single criteria hits Grade 1 ("I almost gave you distinction for sibject specialist knowledge but I just couldn't"). She criticises me for using too high a level vocabulary in the Learning Outcomes - although I'm pretty sure they all understood what they meant - so I seem to have veered from the ridiculous to the sublime.
I need to:
Further develop strategies and questioning techniques to encourage less confident students.
OK - though I thought I did pretty well with these three students.
Use vocabulary and exemplars appropriate to the variety of levels in the group.
I know these guys pretty well by now - they were all on track with me the whole time and I don't think I left anyone behind.
Provide students with the opportunity to work undirected on active learning tasks earlier in the session to encourage independent and peer learning.
I don't teach in the same way as Laura. Certainly I don't have her experience and she is an excellent teacher, but I often get the feeling that because I don't do exactly what she would have done in the same situation, she sees it as wrong. When she's teaching with me, she'll often jump in and say something I was going to say later, just not when she thinks of it.

I'm afraid Laura's very upset about the Ofsted Inspector's mandate that I should be moved to some Creative Writing teaching. I don't know what she was told, but suspect she came in for some kind of criticism about my lack of independent teaching and her internventions in my numeracy class. I think she feels that I am being moved away from her because her mentoring is not working out, when she believes (quite rightly) that she's invested huge amounts of time and energy in my teaching progress. I fear she thinks I've complained about her - which I haven't at all; far from it. As far as I'm aware, this has all come from the Ofsted Inspector's reading of my situation. And of course from my point of view it's very welcome to be able to teach  Creative Writing to students at a higher level than the Adult Literacy classes - which again irks Laura, as she would also prefer to be doing this but is, as she has pointed out to me before, too valuable doing what she does now. And after all, this is only a placement for me, not a job. I'm not in competition with her.
I was able to sort out a placement very easily through Beth's mentor in Creative Arts. She was happy to give me four weeks (and more if I wanted) full day teaching on the Access Creative Writing course. Unfortunately it clashes with the Sure Start class, which I would have to give up next term to do it. Laura has tried to block this, saying it's not fair on the students. She also, however, told me that the only reason she isn't teaching Creative Writing like I'm being allowed to is because she's been working too hard as a teacher to get published (like me). When I went to discuss it with her and try to sort it out, she implied that I was being selfish and aggressive about fulfilling my own needs as opposed to the students', and that by letting me get my own way she would be setting me a bad example of what teaching is really like. I didn't point out that I too am a student.
Without being aggressive (I thought), I pointed out that I was paying several thousand pounds to do the DTLLS course, that Creative Writing was my strongest area of expertise and have a teaching placement to broaden my experience would be invaluable to my future practice, especially in view of the cutbacks we face. (No vacancies currently being filled at our college; nearby colleges making swathes of redundancies). Laura finally agreed to let me have four weeks off the Sure Start class so I could do the full day Creative Writing class for that time, but refused to let me come back into the Wednesday Literacy class (now my Access group have all got their Levels 2s) as anything more than a Teaching Assistant. No independent teaching there for me, then.
It wasn't a pleasant discussion, but compromise was achieved. Thank goodness it's the holidays. I hope she gets to relax and wind down. Certainly she, like all the other college tutors, is hugely over-worked and under great pressure. I'm sorry to have added to her stress, but I do feel I have to make the most of what this course offers me as a student.