TeachedUp Comics: The Masters Class

From Collection 6 - Year Two, "Summer Help and Some Aren't"

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a masters student confuses underserved students with the word undeserved and a classmate calls him out on it

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I'll never forget when this happened. It was in my first Master's Degree course, and I had already come to the realization that I was surrounded by Principal-hopefuls (of which I was not - I was in it to become a MASTER TEACHER [like Master Builder, but only slightly less cool]). The Principal-hopefuls were typically made up of recent Bachelor's Degree grads who had never been in the classroom and were just continuing on to get their Master's (which is totally weird to me, still - I don't care how well-funded a program is... it makes no sense to pursue a Master's Degree when you have no clue yet what problems you're going to face in the school setting... my eyes grow dim every time someone mentions the merits of a 4+1 or 4+2 program and I have to pretend to agree with it). The other half of the group were School Counselors - basically seeking the same thing (to advance to the District Office level - complete with, yet again, a lack of actual classroom teaching experience). I was dumbfounded. I still am, all these years later.

Anyway, the scene played out just as you see it, here (just more painfully drawn out). My classmate kept talking about how the students were "undeserved" (as in, they didn't deserve something... as if they were "bad students" in some way). I was, again, totally dumbfounded. "You mean, underserved"? I couldn't help but beg for some clarification as the disjointed puzzle pieces worked their way around in my brain - seeking context.

There is no substitute for experience. I've taught underserved students (and did what at the time I perceived to be the best support for each that I could). I've felt like I didn't deserve certain students (and that some didn't deserve me)... but that's a different comic episode.

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