“It’s a group debrief,” Desiree said as they walked to the breakout room, swerving around students putting on their boots and coats. “She mentioned it after my observation this morning. She doesn’t have time to debrief with us individually this week, so she’s going to do it as a group.”

“But didn’t Quaid already have his?” Sandeep asked.

“Oh my goodness, yes!” Desiree said, whispering now as they approached the room. “His was horrible. He was practically in tears when we carpooled back home.”

They were quickly joined by the others and sat at a round table. Sandeep hid her fidgeting hands in her lap, trying to take deep breaths without being too obvious. Getting feedback as a group? But it was such a private thing.

As it turned out, Adeline, one of the other student teachers hadn’t even been observed yet and Quaid had finished his already, so all the feedback was for Desiree and Sandeep. Desiree went first, and Sandeep got progressively more nervous as she waited for hers. Oh god, everyone is going to hear everything.

When it was her turn, Irene went through what she did, focusing on what she did wrong more than what she did right.

“Your approach would not work with older kids,” Irene said.

[She] just smiled and nodded. But inside [she] was thinking, “That’s such a stupid suggestion, like that doesn’t even make sense. I cannot be expected to teach grade ones with the same manner that I would teach grade fives.”

Not a day later, Sandeep’s TA said, “I keep noticing the way you phrase your instructions. Don’t get me wrong, it totally works for this group! I don’t want you to think it is ineffective or anything. But seeing as you’d like to teach middle school once you graduate, you could practice giving instructions in a way that would work for older students too.”

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense,” Sandeep said.

She caught herself. It was the same feedback. How come it was so easy to take that feedback from her TA, but not from her UC? It was purely because of her emotional response to them.