Ideally student teaching is collaborative. The intern is watching and questioning the master teacher in order to gain more knowledge for the who/what/when/where/(and most importantly) why of the classroom. In that ideal paradigm, the intern transitions into the classroom and troubleshoots instruction, management, etc with their master teacher.
Unfortunately we are human, and the ideal doesn't necessarily work out. In my case it has been quite collegial, but I am not so sure for others in other schools. Why? Well we get in our own way, and we begin to think that we can do things better than the people before us. Even worse is ignoring the experience of the classroom teacher in favor of your own new world perspective, the first person to see land... "Ahoy!"
Where am I going? Well the two cohorts that are student teaching met yesterday to discussion management issues we might be seeing in our respective classrooms. The phrase told to us before and after, a large small (4 groups of 15+ roughly) group discussion was "You all are your own best resources." We are, we can offer a myriad of experiences as well as the wealth of 40+ different master teachers (likely 200-400 years, collectively, of classroom experience).
I don't believe that statement is meant to mean: you alone are the best resources you have. Instead, we should be troubleshooting from what we have seen/experienced, and with something more than a nod to our master teachers attempts to quell management issues. I doubt that our master teachers are at their "wits end," leaving us to clean up a mess. Perhaps they have in other cases, but I haven't seen it. While I certainly have management issues to work through, I don't see them as much different from those that my master teacher was dealing with.... so you start from what has already been done, you think about the root of the issue, and you work to find a solution that will work for the betterment of the greater learning environment.
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