Teaching, Assisting, Reflecting

Question: What did you learn about yourself from this experience?

Phillandra Smith: Tough question. I learned that I prefer teaching in person, mostly because I felt like a lot of our online sessions were boring. Although we got impressive course reviews (the best I’ve received since I started at Syracuse), I was not confident in my abilities once we shifted to teaching online. The move to online because of Covid-19 was rather abrupt. We had just enough time to figure out the technological aspects, but I don’t think we had enough time to figure out engagement strategies. So, I guess I learned that I need to have some self-compassion and ask others for feedback before I beat myself up and start to feel like I’ve failed in epic ways.

Meghan Brozaitis: What I learned about myself from this experience is how to be a teaching assistant and how to work in a classroom, since I plan on working in classrooms.

Question: What were your responsibilities as an intern?

Phillandra Smith: Meghan was responsible for all things connected to attendance. She held on to attendance sheets and ensured students signed in. She also distributed whatever supplies we were working on that day. On the day I missed class, she ensured that the system was up and that the PowerPoint for the day loaded to the system. Meghan also graded extra-credit assignments. I think I should have pushed this a step further and asked her to give the students feedback on their extra-credit assignments.

Meghan Brozaitis: My responsibilities as an intern were doing the attendance sheets and helping out with the lesson plans for what we were going to do in class. The students emailed both of us when they would be absent so I could mark them as excused on the roster.

Question: Describe your favorite class session. What made that session great?

Phillandra Smith: My favorite class session was the one we did on tracking.1 We started the session by looking at everyone’s pets, and then Meg asked an opening question that got people talking even before I introduced the topic. Our students seemed happy, they laughed and shared, and Meg texted me after to say it was a good class. She hadn’t done this before.

Meghan Brozaitis: My favorite class session was when we would do group discussion about getting to know each other like when you (Phillandra) called out if you have an iPod, an iPhone, what’s your favorite color, and what made that session great was when everyone got involved.

Question: What is one activity you really enjoyed?

Phillandra Smith: There are two activities I enjoyed; one was our final reflection activity. Since we were all on stay-at-home orders, I asked the students to find something from around their space that represented their semester. One student brought dark chocolate and said her semester was bittersweet, another student brought his Crocs and said the semester had a lot of holes in it but he was able to “redesign” it to make it more pleasurable for him. I wish Meghan was given the heads-up to participate in this exercise. One thing I certainly regret was not having her added to the class Blackboard. Sometimes I would send announcements to the group about changes to readings or what they should expect in the upcoming session and then I would realize I didn’t send this email to Meghan. I also enjoyed when Meghan assisted in preparing the gingerbread person on the poster for an activity. I remember her looking to me and I thought it was for guidance or approval. A student got up from their seat to encourage her about her drawing. It was a reminder that we are all learning and growing, and our lives and development are connected to others.

Meghan Brozaitis: One of the things that I really enjoyed was when I got to draw for one of the activities that the students were doing. They were writing in the drawing.

Question: Two things you wish you did more of . . .

Phillandra Smith: Requesting feedback after each session and/or sitting to discuss how the session went. After one class, Meghan texted me to say the class went well. I felt like that class went particularly well also, but I had not previously acknowledged how valuable her feedback would be and how we could troubleshoot ideas to improve. I didn’t have to do any of this “alone.”

Meghan Brozaitis: Talk more and do group discussion. I wanted to be more a part of what was going on when they were talking about it and seeing what they were talking about, and I just wanted to get to know them more, being more outgoing. I felt like I didn’t talk much to the students.

Question: Three things you wish you had said . . .

Phillandra Smith: Thank you—I said it, but I could have said it more.

How would you like to engage with the students this week?

What ideas do you have?—More of this would be helpful to help Meg develop her skills as well.

Meghan Brozaitis: Good morning.

After they left, telling them have a nice day.

Getting to know them.

Question: Describe your least favorite class session. What didn’t work in that session?

Phillandra Smith: I don’t think I have one in particular, but whenever I felt like I was sitting there talking to folks and they wouldn’t answer back, I felt horrible. I felt like I bored the students lifeless for a full eighty minutes.

Meghan Brozaitis: My least favorite class session was when we watched a movie. What didn’t work in that session, and some of the students didn’t pay attention and they were either on their phones or laptops.

Question: What topic was your favorite? Why?

Phillandra Smith: My favorite topic was tracking. The students seemed very engaged.

Meghan Brozaitis: My favorite topic was talking about the different disabilities and listening to what everyone had to say about it. This was my favorite because I have a disability, so it was interesting learning about it.

Question: Two points of growth over the semester? (What do you think you got better at?)

Phillandra Smith: I got better at being okay with things not being okay and just working with everything as is.

I got better at switching it up on the fly. Depending on the way class was going, things could be added or removed, and even though I spent all that time creating those Google Docs, the vibe of the class took priority.

Meghan Brozaitis: I think I got better this semester doing the attendance sheets and getting better at speaking in front of class.

Question: One thing that you would like your work partner to know . . .

Phillandra Smith: I want my partner to know that I am so grateful for her presence and all the work that she did this semester. I am a do-it-yourself person, and I struggle with asking for help. If you ever felt that I was not maximizing your full potential, it had nothing to do with you and a lot to do with me. I guess I was also concerned about how much work I could ask of you, since it was not a paid internship. But I want you to know that if I could, I would have paid you because you deserve it and more for all you brought to this course. Thank you for all you did and for your patience with me as we figured this out (especially once we moved to online).

Meghan Brozaitis: That it takes me time to get used to what I am doing at first, then I will get used to the job.

Question: What were you most afraid of during this internship?

Phillandra Smith: My greatest fear was that our students would not understand/grasp the unique value we both brought to the class. I stressed the need for us to connect theory to practice and since this was an inclusive education class, “presuming competence” was something we talked about at length, but I feared they would reserve what they learned for classroom contexts where they were the teacher/instructor and not settings like ours where they were the student. I feared that neither Meghan nor myself might meet their expectation for what competent should “look” like. Learning about inclusive practices and actively engaging in inclusive practices are two different things. To know is not enough, but the course content focused more on the “knowing” than “doing.”

We wanted them to engage in inclusive practices in their daily lives, but the only attention given to the “doing” aspect would come through my personal reflections on the way they interacted with both of us (I acknowledge this is subjective). Since I have an awareness of the different ways Black people are constructed in the United States, I would always wonder what my students thought when they saw me, and I feared they leaned toward popular stereotypes and negative constructions. I have had students express in the past that they had never been taught by a Black person, so since this class was predominantly white, I was concerned. I’ve had the privilege of not having to think about this (being a Black educator) in my past since I am from a predominantly Black country; in some ways, I think my mind tries to make up for the lost time by overthinking about these issues. In addition, from the information the students shared with us, very few (less than 10 percent) of the students identified as having a disability, so I could only hope they put what we were teaching into practice and saw value in our unique existences.

Meghan Brozaitis: What was I most afraid of during this internship was that I didn’t know what to expect at first, and I was nervous because I haven’t been a teacher assistant before. Being a teacher assistant for the first time, I was afraid I was going mess up, like I was going to do something wrong—like when I talked in front of the class and handed out what they had to do in class.

Question: If we were to do this over, what are four things we would improve/do better in round two?

Phillandra Smith: I would increase the number of ways students were able to engage with Meghan. I would have ensured Meghan had more leadership roles that involved her being in front of or speaking to the students.

Plan the lessons together so that we planned for how she would engage.

Build our relationship before we started working together so we could set expectations for meaningful reflection.

Time was a limitation in most instances. As a graduate student, I didn’t feel like I had a model for what this experience should look like. Most professors do not have interns; I had no reference point. I lacked an example of what this experience should look like for both of us. With a full course load and teaching, I felt like I was figuring some of this out as I went. This is not to say I have never worked with interns; I have, but not in a university context and not in the United States. Culturally, I am not comfortable asking people to do things they are not paid to do. This meant that if Meghan had something else going on either before or after the class, I saw it as infringing on her personal time to ask her to assist in additional ways. In retrospect, I should have spent more time with her and the person coordinating her internship before we got started to get a sense of the goals they wanted to achieve. At least that way I would be able to provide her with tasks that assisted in the development of those goals while assisting me in some ways as well.

Meghan Brozaitis: Talking about what we are going to be talking about in class to each other before class, going over the PowerPoint and explaining it to me so I know what we are going to do, talking to each other a lot more, meeting after class and going over what we talked about in class. Well, what was hard about all of this is that I was busy—like with doing lunch after I got done with being a teaching assistant—so I didn’t really have much time to go over the notes after class with Phillandra, and then I had belly dancing with my roommates, so I was involved in lot of activities on campus.

Question: What advice would you give to the person having your role next year?

Phillandra Smith: Make time to talk and build the relationship before the class starts. Ask about your intern’s perceived strengths and weaknesses. Get ideas on how they want to be involved, and then try to challenge them to build on perceived weaknesses over the duration of the course. Make time to reflect, and remember, never ever be afraid to ask for help. Your intern has great ideas to share. Talk to the internship coordinator about the objectives of the internship so that you can provide a tailored, meaningful experience. I think if I did more of this, I would have engaged Meghan more. Instead, I had concerns about what I could ask of her, considering issues of confidentiality, and because she was not being paid for her service, I felt like I shouldn’t provide too many tasks. As the person being paid, I felt like I should do the brunt of the work. This view neglects the possible skill building that could have taken place for Meghan if I had shared some of the tasks with her.

Meghan Brozaitis: When you first become a teacher, it is scary, and you don’t really know what is going to happen, but be positive and keep a smile on your face and ask questions.

Phillandra Smith: This experience of working with Meghan has really made me reflect on my inclusive practice, not what I know or what I say, but also what I do and how I do it. How do I embody the practices I want my students to develop? Despite me teaching a course in inclusive education—a course I’ve been a part of for two years—when I reviewed this reflection months after we wrote it, I must confess to my feelings of embarrassment. I feel like I got a lot wrong; there is a lot I would have done differently. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the experience, and I hope someone can learn from the vulnerability of these reflections. Further, I am reminded that “inclusion” is not a final destination, not a final resting place that we arrive at. It would make me feel better if I could say and show that I was an expert on “inclusion,” but I am not. Each day and each person bring a new opportunity for me to think about how I will engage with those around me. I think this piece can be helpful in reminding us that developing an inclusive mindset, along with inclusive practices, is a continuous process. Our goal should be to reflect on our encounters with each person we meet and the environments we meet them in and think about how we can best dismantle barriers that deny them opportunities to be successful—by whatever means they define success.

Meghan Brozaitis: I just got a new job at a day care, and I’ve been working there. I go into different rooms and help out in there. I am a break staff. I do their lunch breaks, and I think my internship taught me how to be confident in myself and ask questions. I do that at this job that I have now.

Note

1. 1. Tracking is a strategy used in schools to separate students into groups based on their perceived academic ability. This happens for all subjects or certain classes and curriculum. Some schools may refer to this as streaming or phasing.