Student Teaching

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Home : 2001 : November : 4

Student Teaching
By Shannon

I totally hear you about being nervous. When I was starting student teaching I was so nervous that I cried for a week straight. My main friend in the program got assigned to the school where she had worked as an aide, so
she already knew everybody. She was so comfortable with everything, and that made me freak out more. Here I had been given this random school in this random town (a rough area I had never even BEEN to) with this random teacher and I was stuck with her. I was SO NERVOUS about being watched by this supervising teacher and by the university supervisor. My friend who had done it before

said it was A LOT of work, and I was nervous because the last thing I needed on top of the stess of being watched was an insurmoutable amount of work. Nervously, I made my initial call to the teacher. Nervously, I went in and met the kids.

Well, of course, the whole experience turned out to be fine. It was nowhere near as much work as I thought it would be. One good thing about student teaching (as opposed to regular teaching) is that you can get some of your prep work and grading done during the day when the master teacher is teaching (except during your solo, of course). If you use the copier, laminator, and paper cutter during that time, you will be able to avoid peak traffic hours and not have to stay as late.

Nine times out of ten, the master teacher is nice. Nobody is overly judgemental, unless you just totally screw up, which you won't. All supervisors will say nice things and make suggestions. It ends up being totally tolerable.

My advice to you would be the same as the rule I try to follow now that I'm teaching full-time. DO NOT TRY TO REINVENT THE WHEEL. Mostly stick to lessons from the books and accompanying materials. Both you and your teacher will feel better. However, do try to throw in some interesting things of your own to spice things up. Do a special project, game, or hands-on activity with them. Get your ideas and materials from books (even the textbooks), the Internet, or other people. This way your master teacher will be impressed, but you won't knock yourself out trying to create materials that probably won't be as good as the time-tested ones from books.

Also, always remember this fact that a master teacher told me ... EVERY TEACHER MAKES MISTAKES. The problem with student teaching is that your mistakes are very, very public.