Practicums were at these three schools: First and Second Semester 2010

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reflections

After teaching at four universities (three in the USA one in South Australia) then three New York City School K-12 schools and one Up State New York school, being a student teacher had its ups and downs. I have been a co-teacher before in my role as technology integrator but never as a student teacher.

I just started teaching one day, University of South Australia, then at some point I was teaching grades 9 - 12 in New York, then grades 6 - 10, and my last employment was teaching K - 3 giving me a K - university teaching portfolio. After all this and the job market dwindling rapidly in the United States, 110,000 teachers lost our jobs last year without replacement, and me turning 63, it seemed time to add an educational component to my schooling. My PhD was in New Media from the University of South Australia and my Masters was in literature and a BA in journalism, which is all fine to teach in a New York private school but not in public schools, in Australia or the rest of the world. Therefore, I have taken another degree.

I had gone through the first 44 years of my life with little schooling - leaving home and tenth grade to do the '60s. Then whilst being a single parent with two boys in South Australia it seemed natural at age 44 to begin university which I did for the next 14 years non-stop. Now with a five year break I am doing it again.

Doing my practicum at three schools, one in New York City, one in New Jersey, and one in South Australia has furthered my education in ways that being a student teacher at one school in one country would not. I am most interested in the global schoolhouse, and I have been to schools in many countries including Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, and most recently Guatemala. I was offered a job at a school in Beijing but my wife and I were not ready to move to China at the time. We are currently on a world-wide search for teaching jobs.

So what did I learn and what was different than when I was at all my previous schools, the ones who paid me? Aside of suddenly putting together classes and teaching them and not being paid the rewarding and learning aspect was within the community and working together with other teachers on a daily basis. In my paid life (ah I miss the money) I was on my own, I was a law to myself. Now, for example, at St. Luke's in New York City, I was the student teacher in fourth grade. In my years of teaching I had missed that particular grade and it was different in that I was part of a regular curriculum, not teaching technology. My school in New Jersey was a repeat of other years of teaching and I was only fulfilling my requirements to get a teaching certificate. My current term of teaching in South Australia is different all together. Though I have ended up completely putting together the course and I am teaching it (the teacher is out with knee surgery for the term so I became the unpaid replacement with the onus on me to do what I wanted - I taught Google SketchUp).