Breaking Free of the Puppeteer: Perspectives on One Practice Teacher's Experience

May 19, 1997 I am no closer to knowing how to teach now than I was before I started practice teaching. I know who I am as a teacher only in contrast to who I know I will not be. This excerpt from an entry in my journal, written two weeks after I completed a semester as a secondary English teacher-intern, displays the confusion created in my mind by a situation mostly beyond my control. Time has helped me understand that I learned valuable lessons about my identity during my practicum, but they were lessons learned the hard way. Those months were my introduction to the detrimental effects of pretending to be someone I'm not in the classroom. I experienced a range of other struggles as well, from classroom management difficulties to failed attempts to implement a writing workshop. Looking back, it's difficult to believe that ten weeks could so dramatically affect my outlook on the teaching profession and on myself as a teacher. Research Methods I found my way through data by immersing myself in it ... letting it lead me, rather than imposing a predetermined, standard analytical scheme. (Bissex, 1996, p. 28) My university courses and independent work with two professors formed my background in ethnography and teacher research. I knew that the practice teaching semester would be a significant time in my development as a teacher. Likewise, I knew that this experience would be a valuable source of data; since I was going to be immersed in it, I decided to record and study its effects on me. I began actively reflecting on my experience and my reactions to it in the form of a dialogue journal with a professor/mentor, a process that we continued throughout my practicum semester. While we did not limit acceptable topics for entries, I began by concentrating on this focusing question provided by my mentor: how do you see yourself in the process of learning to teach? This broad question was designed to help me focus on myself as a subject; as time passed and I became more comfortable with the journal writing, I used the journal as a place to record any and all concerns. While some passages seem to be mere venting of frustration, many others, when examined, chronicle my development as a teacher. I confess that, for the first two weeks of practice teaching when life seemed to be one allconsuming lesson plan, I resented the time needed for writing in my dialogue journal. Initial entries are less reflective, more forced, but even the short statements about what happened each day serve to remind me not only of specific events but also of my state of mind at the time. Had these moments not been recorded, I would have lost them forever in a haze of fragmented feelings. Once I received feedback, I realized that I was desperate to tell someone what I was doing and feeling each day. I began to anticipate my nightly journal time with eagerness, and writing helped me to put into perspective some tense and trying times. I also decided that I will never teach without keeping a journal; the nature of teaching creates fragmented days, and it is impossible to keep track of the day's events to fully examine them if nothing is recorded. The Puppet Show: Scenes from My Practice Teaching Semester I remember the afternoon that I first realized practice teaching might be the worst of times without the best of times to even the scales. I was assigned to a wonderful teacher whose methods and philosophy matched my own, until the day two weeks before full-time teaching when I was transferred to another teacher's classroom. I was informed about a widespread policy that does not allow practice teachers to take over classes culminating in a state exam. I felt a lack of control over this that for me became symbolic of "my" classroom for the remainder of my experience. Act I: Losing Lynn "Hope you have a reasonable class so you would be more of yourself. …