One thing I really can't stand is when people patronize me. This happened at school today. I work with a teacher who believes that throwing me into the high school classroom with no curriculum foundation to start with and almost no guidance will be a positive step in my education. My problems with that are quite numerous, and include my worries about disrupting the continuity of teaching for the students, that my unfamiliarity with the students will lead to misgrading and classroom treatment, or that I am assuming that they know more/less than they do and therefore my teaching will actually be detrimental to their education. I finally told my teacher this today, when, after 5 hours of sleep the last night because I stayed up writing and rewriting my baseless lessons plans, I finally snapped. She made the assumption that I was either too scared or too lazy to attempt teaching ESL on the secondary level. She actually said "You've been in college and, you know, you're in graduate school now, so I really expected more from you." (This might have also been a jab at elementary school teachers in general, because I told her that that's what I want to be and she always brings up how much more difficult high school is). Anyway, I almost burst out crying (because that's what I do when I'm really mad- anyone else might have hit her with my huge messenger bag). HOW CAN I LEARN HOW TO TEACH IN THIS SETTING WHEN I'VE NEVER SEEN IT DONE BEFORE? You wouldn't train someone for a job and say "well, this position is spontaneous and no one will be helping you in the future, so just go ahead and do it and we'll tell you about mistakes after you've made them." I can't imagine how stressful that would be. I honestly believe that the students are infinitely more important than my "self-education" by trial and error. So, at the end of the meeting, by which time I was writing really hard because I was so mad, "we" decided that I should turn in all my lesson plans beforehand, since I was so adament about being "prepared." I will also ask her millions of questions (which may border on obnoxious, but, oh well) since this is the best way for me to find out crucial information. Today, when she wasn't in the room, I was asked into the hall by the head of security. He told me to lock the door and that no one could leave during class because of a family violence issue (i.e. the crazy father might be roaming the halls, trying to hurt her). Maybe some guidance would have been helpful in that situation.