Well, I made it.
In the morning, I walk to campus as I've done so many times this year, but this time I'll keep walking to Franklin Field. Then I'll wait for a long time. Then I'll walk a tiny bit more, and for some reason that time I'll get to hear lots of cheers and applause.
I guess if people clapped every time I walked, it would lose its meaning. So that's why graduation is special.
Also this: come tomorrow, I won't just be "Jesse Gottschalk;" I'll be "Jesse Gottschalk, M.S.Ed.," or as I'll demand people refer to me, "Jesse Gottschalk, Master of Science."
And yeah, I'll be done with grad school, although as I've said before, I've basically been done for weeks now. My last day of student teaching was three weeks ago; my final portfolio was done a couple days later. We had one final seminar ten days ago, which was actually pretty nice: our professor brought in cookies for us, and gave us pretty much the entire time to share our portfolios and classroom takeover experiences with one another. That was pretty awesome -- I have a lot of respect for my classmates, so I was excited to hear more about what they had done.
The real conclusion of our program was on Monday, when they threw us a nice dinner together with some of our faculty and all of our Penn Mentors.
They all shared brief tributes to us (or rather, they were instructed to be brief, but there was a lot of disregarding of those instructions). Finally, they sent us off with envelopes containing two things: the rubric/feedbacks from our portfolios; and a really nice, personal letter written collaboratively by the faculty, addressed to each of us individually, summarizing our year and saying some really nice things about us. It was pretty sweet and sentimental, and felt like a really nice end to the year.
Which has now ended. Weird.
Am I glad I did this program? Did I make the right choice for me? I think I did. I honestly do. I think the best explanation I can give for why I feel this way is: because I feel like I have a vision for what I would want my own classroom to look like, and I feel like I know much of what I can do in order to get there. Neither of those statements would have been true a year ago. This is true in a lot of areas -- content instruction (a year ago, I had no idea how to teach someone to read, or to guide a whole-class math discussion, etc.), differentiation methods (the subject of my final portfolio), models of classroom management -- my learning is nowhere near complete, but I'm pretty impressed by how much I feel like this year has taught me.
Sure, I know that I'll have challenges my first year, and will feel unprepared in a lot of ways (like every single teacher I've ever met says they did their first year). But those two things I mentioned above -- having a vision to work towards, and strategies to get there -- will make a huge difference for me. And I'm really excited to try it.
What else? Ten months later, I'm even more confident that this is what I want to do -- a major relief, and pretty exciting, to be sure. I've made a lot of awesome connections: classmates whom I'm sure I'll swap first-year stories with this year; faculty whom I really respect and trust, and whom I'll contact to ask advice on a variety of things; mentors whom I'll reach out to for classroom strategies, lesson ideas, and lots of other guidance; as well as non-Penn networks that I've connected into, like the Caucus of Working Educators (which has at least one TEP alum on the steering committee) and teacher discussion groups like iTAGs and the Philadelphia Teacher Learning Cooperative. I've gotten a new entry into and perspective on the city's schools as well, which was another important reason I came to Penn.
And I wrote a blog. And met a lot of cool prospective students (maybe you, dear reader). Speaking of which...
Members of the 2014-15 TEP Elementary/Middle Grades cohort: welcome! I'm looking forward to greeting you on your first day, July 1st. See you in six weeks!
To everyone else: it's been a pleasure writing for you. If you have any questions for me, my GSE email address isn't long for this world, so the best way is to post them in the comments (I'll still get updates when people comment) or to reach out to the admissions office and ask them for my contact info.
...And, that's a wrap.
In the morning, I walk to campus as I've done so many times this year, but this time I'll keep walking to Franklin Field. Then I'll wait for a long time. Then I'll walk a tiny bit more, and for some reason that time I'll get to hear lots of cheers and applause.
I guess if people clapped every time I walked, it would lose its meaning. So that's why graduation is special.
Also this: come tomorrow, I won't just be "Jesse Gottschalk;" I'll be "Jesse Gottschalk, M.S.Ed.," or as I'll demand people refer to me, "Jesse Gottschalk, Master of Science."
And yeah, I'll be done with grad school, although as I've said before, I've basically been done for weeks now. My last day of student teaching was three weeks ago; my final portfolio was done a couple days later. We had one final seminar ten days ago, which was actually pretty nice: our professor brought in cookies for us, and gave us pretty much the entire time to share our portfolios and classroom takeover experiences with one another. That was pretty awesome -- I have a lot of respect for my classmates, so I was excited to hear more about what they had done.
The real conclusion of our program was on Monday, when they threw us a nice dinner together with some of our faculty and all of our Penn Mentors.
They all shared brief tributes to us (or rather, they were instructed to be brief, but there was a lot of disregarding of those instructions). Finally, they sent us off with envelopes containing two things: the rubric/feedbacks from our portfolios; and a really nice, personal letter written collaboratively by the faculty, addressed to each of us individually, summarizing our year and saying some really nice things about us. It was pretty sweet and sentimental, and felt like a really nice end to the year.
Which has now ended. Weird.
Am I glad I did this program? Did I make the right choice for me? I think I did. I honestly do. I think the best explanation I can give for why I feel this way is: because I feel like I have a vision for what I would want my own classroom to look like, and I feel like I know much of what I can do in order to get there. Neither of those statements would have been true a year ago. This is true in a lot of areas -- content instruction (a year ago, I had no idea how to teach someone to read, or to guide a whole-class math discussion, etc.), differentiation methods (the subject of my final portfolio), models of classroom management -- my learning is nowhere near complete, but I'm pretty impressed by how much I feel like this year has taught me.
Sure, I know that I'll have challenges my first year, and will feel unprepared in a lot of ways (like every single teacher I've ever met says they did their first year). But those two things I mentioned above -- having a vision to work towards, and strategies to get there -- will make a huge difference for me. And I'm really excited to try it.
What else? Ten months later, I'm even more confident that this is what I want to do -- a major relief, and pretty exciting, to be sure. I've made a lot of awesome connections: classmates whom I'm sure I'll swap first-year stories with this year; faculty whom I really respect and trust, and whom I'll contact to ask advice on a variety of things; mentors whom I'll reach out to for classroom strategies, lesson ideas, and lots of other guidance; as well as non-Penn networks that I've connected into, like the Caucus of Working Educators (which has at least one TEP alum on the steering committee) and teacher discussion groups like iTAGs and the Philadelphia Teacher Learning Cooperative. I've gotten a new entry into and perspective on the city's schools as well, which was another important reason I came to Penn.
And I wrote a blog. And met a lot of cool prospective students (maybe you, dear reader). Speaking of which...
Members of the 2014-15 TEP Elementary/Middle Grades cohort: welcome! I'm looking forward to greeting you on your first day, July 1st. See you in six weeks!
To everyone else: it's been a pleasure writing for you. If you have any questions for me, my GSE email address isn't long for this world, so the best way is to post them in the comments (I'll still get updates when people comment) or to reach out to the admissions office and ask them for my contact info.
...And, that's a wrap.
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