wait time and higher level questions

So this coming week is my final week in middle school. I am a bit sad but I must admit relieved. After nearly seven weeks with a teacher who has said to me that she hates children I am more than ready for this to be over. This week I found myself dealing with clashing schedules with my university supervisor. I have already completed my unit and my 18-20 days of teaching and I had only been observed once by my supervisor. I was informed that she would not be able to come back until April 30. My supervising teacher seemed to fume at this. She made me call Dr. McCain right then. I felt embarrassed and ridiculous. I really do want this to be over. It did finally work out I suppose even if it was not under ideal circumstances.
I wanted to talk today about wait time and higher level of questions. I have found that when I taught my supervising teacher’s lesson plans there was no wait time nor were there any higher level questions. She spoon fed them the answers to simple recall questions and they still did poorly on assignments or assessments. The essential questions that are written on the board each morning are often times not even on topic. As a matter of a fact I saw one that literally brought up issues and drama surrounding a certain clique. THIS WAS THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION FOR THE DAY!!! These children are not being taught to think for themselves. When I took over her class I had to use the essential questions and bell ringers that I was told to. She wanted to keep all of her students on the same page. I can deal with that I suppose. However I found that whenever we would go over the questions the students would just wait for me to give them the answer. The wait time seemed to last forever. All of these questions were simple recall questions from the book. I would tell them that they could find the answers in their books under the section that we were talking about. I would find maybe one or two in each of the three classes that I had take out their book and bother to look for the answer. These students refuse to read so I find it difficult to ask them higher level questions. I asked the students what they expected from me when I asked questions and their reply was our teacher always just gives us the answer. I took up a ridiculous amount of time each morning asking these simple recall questions but I refused to answer them for them. By the end of my time there were still only three to four students looking for the answers. What is the appropriate wait time? Do I spend the entire class time on these questions if they refuse to answer? I do not know the answers to this even after reading about the wait time. I did ask them four essay questions on my test that I had made up. Two of them were open ended questions. We went over them in class leading up to the exam. I even listed on the board a list of possible ways to answer those questions. They still disappointed me in their answers. I am trying to figure out what I did wrong. My supervising teacher made up her own test for my unit as well and chose the students that she wanted to take her test. They were her A students. I do not get it. That test did not have one essay question on it. It was all simple recall information. She allowed the students to use their notes and guided reading worksheets on all of the tests as well. So much for my unit.
Until next time,
Anisa Dye-Hale