I Have Fired Assistants Before

I started student teaching, at a middle school, for my college program. I've been placed with a great mentor teacher, and I know she appreciates my help with her students. Those students, on the other hand, have needed a beat to acclimate to me. In this program I have the luxury of focusing on just one or two students that really need individual attention.

Some of my students don't think of that as a luxury. As I float around from student to student, they know that they are either going to need to focus on their work, or they are going to have to see what they can get away with not doing, and figure out how to handle me. I encourage them to stay focused and I reenforce skills they need to apply for accomplishing their tasks. All that extra, and sudden, attention can be pretty exhausting for some of these students.

One student, in particular, struggles with staying focused on his tasks. He'd excel in his classes if it weren't for that. He's also one of those people who was just born to be a leader, and does not appreciate me telling him to stay focused. For the first week that I was with him, we were figuring each other out. The next week, he had decided that he would act rudely toward me, and quickly figured out that I wouldn't accept that behavior. He changed his tactic to find a bit more balance, looked at me over the top of his computer screen as I was helping him to finish an assignment, and said, "You know, I have fired assistants before."

He said it like such a boss, too. A lesser woman might have walked away at that point. I, on the other hand, said, "Well, you could try to fire me, but it's not going to work, and you really do need me. So, let's just skip that and finish your assignment." The look he gave me was so cute (and slightly scathing) as he took a breath and decided he would listen to me. The next week, he saw his grades improving, and realized that I  really was there to help him.