Chapter 14: Humility From a Hubcap

The run-of-the-mill student teaching experience for most teacher candidates is fairly typical. Young, ambitious candidates are assigned a class load, go through the professional motions of an educator for 10 weeks, and then proceed into the charades of interview and first-year novice.

Yes, run-of-the-mill. Average. Typical. Relatable. Expected.

My experience, somehow, was fated to be different.

“Becca, I‘ve recommended you for a special assignment,” my supervisor explained on Assignment Day, the day each cohort member discovered where he or she was to spend the student teaching semester. “You’re going to be in a retention academy at Morgan County Middle School with Melissa Brown, the ELA and social studies teacher. It’s a pilot program for students who have been retained at least once at the middle school level. What do you think?”