Student Teaching!!

I did my student teaching at Monroe High School in the fall of 2004. I loved my student teaching experience and learned so much from my mentor!  During our seminar, there were a lot of student teachers that did not have the same great experience, I considered myself lucky.  All of my student teaching was done in health (my major), and if you had asked me back then if I would be teaching business classes in the future, I would have said, “no way”. 

Student teaching is hard work.  You work 40 hours a week with no pay and start to learn what it’s really like to be a teacher.  I had a class that had me in tears at least once a week!  I learned more about classroom management from them than I ever did sitting in a classroom at Central (sorry Nancy).  

You never really know what your experience will be like until you get there.  My mentor started the classes and handed over one hour at time.  She shared all her lessons, we co-taught, it was wonderful!!  I learned so much from her and took away more than I ever expected.  Some host teachers will literally throw you in the class, first day, and let you go. 

When my advisor from Central would come for my evaluations, I was required to write a full I-Tip lesson plan for him, which I’m sure you’ve done numerous times over the last 4 years!  My mentor would laugh and say, “You will never do this when you’re a ‘real’ teacher, you won’t have time”.  And she was right….until now!  The state is now requiring all teachers to be evaluated, every year.  Our district has started these evaluations this year and with those evaluations, we have to have LESSON PLANS!!!  Not just for that day, but for the entire term, and every class.  If they were to “pop in” for a 10-minute mini observation, we better have those lesson plans with our 5 key components for them to see.  Our district has been in an uproar all year over these lesson plans.  It truly is impossible to write them for every day.  Don’t get me wrong, I have an outline of my courses, and a general idea of what needs to be covered that day, but it takes a lot of time to write out all of the components that they want each and every day, plus grade paper, plus do extra-curricular, plus take college classes, plus deal with day to day problems with students/lessons/discipline, etc.  I spent my entire planning hour last week in the counseling office with a student because she came to me with a problem.  Needless to say I didn’t get lesson plans done that dayJ  My point to all of this is not to discourage you, but to expect changes even though you do not think they are relevant, someone might. 

Tips:

1.       Get to know the principal at the school and ask him/her for input, advice, to come observe you teach.  He could make a very good recommendation for you, or will remember you when their school has a position open.

2.       Take pictures for your portfolio each week!  That way it doesn’t look like you took it the last week and took all your pictures on the same day. 

3.       Ask the students to fill out evaluations for you at the end of the semester. 

4.       Each lunch in the teachers’ lounge to get to know other teachers, and hear about some of their challenges as veteran teachers.  Beware:  some teachers have very negative attitudes and don’t let that suck you in and start to take that attitude on yourself.

5.       If you’re lucky enough to have a teacher share with you, make copies and keep everything!! And they like new lessons too; share your ideas with themJ