Surprise! Some Things You May Not Have Considered Before Beginning Your Student Teaching

by Patrick Hales (May '08 graduate)

The following is a list that I wish to pass along to those of you embarking on the strange and fantastic journey that is student teaching. Consider each of the following points and take them to heart. I feel that they will be of some assistance to you in your dark times.

1. You will have dark times. Don’t kid yourself. If you didn’t second guess, kick, or otherwise mentally abuse yourself at times, you would not be a good teacher. It happens. What you’ve got to remember and hold onto when you feel like you want to give up is this: you grow from failure, not from success. Without failure, success is nothing.

2. All your students will not want to know you or learn from you. A sad, but true fact. Many students could care less. The magical thing about a good teacher, though, is that we can trick them into learning.

3. You will be told that your primary job is not teaching. Many administrators will switch your primary job’s focus from day to day. Monday, it may be to keep accurate attendance. Tuesday, it may be accommodations. Wednesday, it could be to clean up the cafeteria for all you know. Long story short; be true to yourself and your students. If, at the end of the day, your students can leave better off than when they came in, you’ve done one heck of a job no matter what the administration says.

4. Number three being said, you’ve got a lot to keep up with other than actual teaching. You have to keep attendance, grade books, lesson plans (hard copy and online), IEP’s, 504’s, health action plans, emergency evacuation plans, and a whole lot of odds and ends. You’re a secretary, administrator, counselor, nurse, everything really. In my student teaching alone, I’ve had two pregnant students, three with severe asthma, one with a imbalance that makes her pass out if she stands up to fast, one with low blood sugar, and one who was the first person to successfully receive this special type of transplant, all of whom I have had to be trained on how to handle in specific situations. Also, I have about 5 students in each class that have to leave every time I give a test because their IEP’s say they must either get it read aloud or they get a separate setting. I realize that number four has gone long, but I say all this to say: you’ve have got so much more to deal with than you ever thought. Be prepared. And in the words of Douglas Adams, Don’t Panic.

5. They weren’t kidding, you are underappreciated. People don’t think you do anything because they can’t see our results with their eyes. Everyone in the world thinks they can do our job. Just grin and bear it. You’ll see results and you’ll love it.

Thank you all for reading and choosing to be what you are, which is evidently amazing people. It takes that to do our job. Remember, you’re not alone out there. Don’t give up!