It's official! I am doing my student teaching. Wow, does this feel weird. I never thought I would make it to this point... it always seemed so far away and I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am working with the most amazing cooperating teacher, Julie who is organized, goofy, and extremely good at what she does. Sometimes when I watch her teach I am just in awe. I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful teacher to work under. But at the same time I am so intimidated by how good of a teacher she is. I know that she has years of experience and training under her belt and I am just starting out, so why do I compare myself to her? When Julie gets up, it's like magic. The kids obey, they respect her and they truly love her. There are kids in the class who have potential to be "the problems kids" but her excellent classroom management skills keeps these particular students in line. It's incredible.
In about 2 weeks, I am going to be taking over the class full day for about 4-5 weeks. Slowly she is turning the class over to me. I have taught several lessons and have found many flaws in my teaching. Yesterday I taught a math lesson and it was the first lesson that Julie formally evaluated me (she has to formally evaluate me 4 times during the duration of my student teaching). I felt like the lesson was a failure. There were so many things that I did wrong but didn't know quite how to fix it. After the lesson she gave me a few pointers. She gave such great advice! I am like a sponge and want to learn all I can from her. She told me to set my expectations of how I want the class to behave. I may have to do this every time I teach because the class knows I am not their real teacher. Today during the language lesson, Julie left the room completely and I was left with those 24 8-9 years staring me in the face. I implemented what Julie taught me. I set my expectations and didn't back down. I have even developed "the look"!!! I am so proud of myself for developing this early on in my teaching career. You know that look, the look of death that makes you never want to do anything bad ever again. Yes, I have it down.
Anyway, I figured since I never EVER post things, now would be a good time to blog about student teaching for those who are curious how teachers start out and also for my benefit. I hope to see a lot of growth in myself over the next few months because boy oh boy I have a lot to learn!
