Some venting on teaching

Today I went to institute, and because of there being so many new people, he had everyone stand up and introduce themselves and a little about themselves. I mentioned my student teaching. He asked where at and I told him. To this he replied, "Good luck, I'm sure you'll have many stories to tell me." This really quite shocked me. This guy is an exceptionally good teacher and has high expectations for his classroom. He generally tends not to think condescendingly of people or anything of that nature. For him to pass that type of judgment on a school as a teacher surprised me greatly. The schools I'm teaching at are over 80% African American. He moved in the area last year, and he has 3 or 4 kids, so I'm sure he looked at all the local school to see what was the best for his children. So he probably saw in general what type of school it is. It still just surprises me that he would pass that type of judgment upon a school.

One more item on venting about a teacher that I've vented on about four or five times on my blog already. Maybe I should give him a name since I talk about him so much on here. Apparently I'm not approved to student teach quite yet. Don't worry, it'll happen. It's just the thing that I have to do in order to student teach is about the stupidest requirement I've ever been given in a class that has no relevancy to the class. In my music education class, one of the requirements at the beginning of the class was to sign up for CMENC. That was it. Now ask me if we ever used any material from CMENC in the classroom. Not a single time. Tell me, would it have benefited me any last year to join CMENC. No. Last year I was too busy to do anything meaningful by joining CMENC. It would have been a waste of time and money for me. So I opted not to sign up for it because it wasn't needed at all. Well, this teacher must have his way in all things, and basically will not give me the grade in the class until I sign up for something completely irrevelant for the class. I must have all other requirements complete before I student teach(which he is also in charge of), so this is what must be done.
Now this isn't to say that MENC itself would be worthless, because it isn't. I do see the value in joining it, and I fully mean to this year and afterwards when I'm actually teaching. But as a college student on a tight budget taking 19 credit hours, yeah right. This guy is so completely stubborn and terrible as a teacher of teachers. He needs to go back and be a band director. From what I hear, he was actually good at that. (One more semester of him... I can make it...)