if you can, do both...

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if you can, do both...
By bam

I would try to do both. You are right, student teaching should be your main focus, but you could probably learn alot reflecting on your experiences in a paper. And graduating Summa cum laude is a great thing! It's great to
have on your resume and a good thing for grad school. (It won't make or break you though if you decide not to do it).
Maybe you can figure out a way to organize it so you really only write a page a day, or work on it 30 minutes a day until it's done. That way, you aren't completely overwhelmed. I am not sure of what exactly your paper has to be about, but if you take good notes each

day and collect whatever data you need to do it, you should be able to do both.

You could highligt what you learned from writing the paper in an interview, which makes you a candidate that goes above beyond what's required.

Doing the paper would also prepare you for graduate school, and doing what I'm doing right now... teaching full time & going to grad school. Trying to balance it all.

Student teaching is a lot of work and a lot of time, but if you are well organized and plan for it not to take over your life (and it shouldn't) a 25 page paper shouldn't be too much. Either way, it's up to you and what you feel you can handle. Gratuating summa cum laude isn't worth your sanity, if it's too much... graduate cum laude. (Which is awesome anyway!) Good luck!

If you want to talk more about your paper email me bmont22comcast.net