Student teaching
 

I did a search for student teaching and didn't find any threads already specifically dedicated to this topic, so I just thought I'd start one. :)

I am student teaching (9th and 11th grade English and American Literature) in the fall and I am extremely nervous! I know it's going to be a lot of work, and I am totally prepared for that aspect of it. I'm just quite worried that the teacher and everyone at the school is going to hate me, despite that in all previous teaching experiences, everyone has really liked me.

The teacher told me upon our first meeting that she didn't want a student teacher due to a prior experience and that her principal was making her take a student teacher (me). So that immediately put me at ease. :rolleyes: I'm trying to see that statement as a challenge to change her beliefs.

Anyway, I'd love to hear of anyone else student teaching experiences, good or bad!

I begin my student teaching this following spring. I will be in elementary so I will most likely be placed in a 3rd-5th grade class.

I am going through the same anxiety about them "hating me" and have even been getting "cold feet" towards teaching.

What is helping me is that several of my already teacher friends keep encouraging me that I will do just fine!..and the same is true for you.

I admit the teacher not wanting an intern would set me off too...but like you said, try and see it as a challange. I am sure that after the fall she will hope all interns are as great as you!!!

I wish you all the luck and strength in the world :) congrats on student teaching..

keep us posted on your semester :)

Bring her a present :) Seriously, I've warmed the coldest of master-teacher's hearts with just bringing them something I had noticed they were interested in. *nods* They'll know you're brown-nosing, but they'll also notice that you're trying *nods once more*

Ooh, good idea! Thanks!

One year ago I was student teaching...time FLIES!! I was placed in a 5th grade classroom (K-6 licence). It was the BEST experience. My master-teacher and I made an awesome pair and our teaching philosophies were so lined up (or at least my developing teaching philosophy quickly aligned to hers). She is a former Teacher of the Year winner and has received recognition in many other ways. We became great friends through the process as well, and I learned so much. After my student teaching, I accepted a 5th grade position at a different school that only was for 9 weeks, then I went back to my student teaching school and covered a 2nd grade maternity leave. While doing that maternity leave, I learned that one of the 5th grade teammates wanted to drop down to 1st grade (where there was going to be an opening for the next school year)...so that left a 5th grade hole that I quicly jumped in and so now I'm teaching along side my once master-teacher!! Our third teammate rounds out our team and everything is going great so far in my first full year of teaching. This is the kids second week back at school! :-)

Good luck!

I also student teach this fall. I am in a 2nd grade class for 6 weeks then a 4th grade class the second 6 weeks. I know what teachers I will have but I have never met them before. From what I hear they are pretty nice but I guess I will see. The thing I am afraid of is finding out who my cooperating university teacher is. We won't find out until a day before we start teaching. From what I have heard how good your experience is depends on how nice your cooperating teacher is. I just hope I don't get someone really mean.
We should use this thread to talk about problems we encounter and to talk about things we excell in! This way we can get some encouragement when we want to run out of the school pulling our hair out! haha Well good luck to everyone who is teaching this fall!

WhiteDaisy, that sounds like an awesome experience! I only hope my semester will be as good as yours!

I'm student teaching this fall as well. I'm an English Ed major, and I'll be teaching at the middle school level. I have yet to find out what grade I will have and what teacher I will be working with. The school seems like a fun place. Many of the teachers and administrators are fairly young. I am really excited, but nervous at the same time!

I agree with DZTUBAGIRL- we shoud use this thread to talk about the problems we come across this year. I'm sure I'll need somewhere to vent!

Good luck to everyone this semester!:)

I'll be doing my second student teaching assignment while finishing up my credential program this semester (teaching credentialing are post-baccalaureate in CA).

Lat semester I taught in a primary-elementary (gifted first grade) class and this semester it will be upper elementary.

So, I will definitely be posting on here to vent... I'm not super excited to work with the "big kids"!

ETA: To all you CA teachers and student teachers, I will be taking the RICA (Reading Instruction Compentency Assessment) this Saturday...ugh, I've been studying continuously for the past two weeks, wish me luck!

I did my student teaching almost 2 years ago now. Been through a year of subbing and still looking for a job. :(

Anyways.....my experience was very stressful. I did 8 weeks in a Kindergarten classroom in one district and 8 weeks in a Multi-age 1 and 2 classroom in another district.

My first 8 weeks was hell on earth to put it nicely. My teacher never allowed me to make a connection with the students or even take the class on my own. She was always there, looking over my shoulder, criticizing my work, etc, etc..... She barely even spoke to me outside of the classroom, i.e. lunch, after school. I think I went home crying almost every single day and stopped at Starbucks every morning because it was what got me through the day. I wanted to quit by week 7 and ended up calling the director of student teaching and my supervisor telling them that I didn't want to go back and that I'd rather fail. They allowed me to get my final and take week #8 off before heading to my next assignment.

My second 8 weeks was the complete opposite. My cooperating teacher and I got along so well and I also had other student teachers in the building with me. (I was alone on the first one) She allowed me to do whatever I wanted and felt comfortable enough to leave the room whenever she wanted to get some other work done. She was absolutely wonderful! I ended up passing with flying colors and wanting to teach again.

Good luck with your experiences. I always pray that no one has as bad of an experience as I had but make the most of it if you do. I learned a lot about myself within those 8 weeks and throughout the weeks following it.

I begin my student teaching in the spring, however don't let the teacher's bad attitude get you down. You are an adult, and a professional at that, so conduct yourself in that manner, and expect the same of her.

I signed up to student teach at my old high school, with my old business teacher...which is coincidentally the field I'm getting my Master's in. I haven't received confrimation yet, but I really hope I can get assigned to her, because I loved her as a high school student.

I'm not sure how I would deal with a teacher giving me too much negative feedback...I would probably confront her and let her know that her negative feedback isn't really providing me with the right information to grow from the experience.

As far as not getting jobs, make sure you market yourself to all schools...public, private, and independent. And don't overlook moving to other areas.

Some sites to visit:

http://www.teachers-teachers.com/

http://www.teacherjobs.com/

www.recruitingteachers.org

www.teachingjobs.com

http://www.southernteachers.com/

Also check county education sites in your areas, as well as independent and private school sites in your area. Usually if you sub for a private/independent school for a while, they'll take you on as a teacher (sometimes you don't even need a degree in the area you're teaching in). Also if you are having much difficulty finding a teaching job, think about becoming an assistant teacher for a particular school (I recommend private/independent schools.)

Thanks for the info about private/independent schools. I really only want to teach in a private or independent school (or even a charter school) since I am big on vouchers and school choice. :) I also don't want to join a teacher union (ever) because I don't agree with their policies or their politics, so a private school would be a better place for me. I'll definitely keep those things in mind!

I'm no longer planning to go into education, but don't you guys think the whole student teaching concept is kind of odd? Is there any other job where you have to work several months for free before you can be licensed? It just seems kind of harsh.

Counseling and social work fields require an internship, which is similar to student teaching. In counseling psychology, I had to do two practica (plural for practicum?) where I was on site 10 hours a week. My internship was 40 hours a week...I got a TINY stipend for that one, but some of my fellow students didn't get a stipend.

PsychTau

I think many fields now require some sort of internship to graduate and quite a few are unpaid. A lot of journalism internships are not paid (or it's minimal), some business internships are unpaid, etc... I think those with paid internships are few (and lucky!)

I think student teaching is a great concept. You have real-classroom experience with increasing levels of participation/authority as you go and can explore your personal teaching style/philosophy. You have someone "in charge" if you have questions/problems. You can see if teaching is really what you want to do. My roommate student taught spring semester of my sophomore year and hated it. She ended up going to grad school in Arizona for Public Health (I think) and is much happier.

I agree that student teaching is a great idea, but it would be nice if people got paid for it. It's really a full time job that you have to pay to have, which is kind of nuts, I think.

I always thought that most internships were part time, so you could still work a reasonable number of paid hours somewhere if you wanted, without being terribly over-extended.

My Occupational Therapy fieldwork was the same as student teaching. We had to do 6 months of full time work, sometimes relocated to a different state, and pay full time tuition for it. It stunk. One of mine was a home health care placement so I had gas and car expenses on top of it! They didn't even pay me mileage. Thankfully, I was living with my (then) future-in-laws free of charge. I was supposed to be 5 minutes from my parents' house for the second one, but it was cancelled two weeks before my placement. I was put in another place where they gave me a free apartment (had to pay phone and groceries only) but we had roaches and one night, a bat got in the apartment. AND, it was on the grounds of the state mental health institution which was also right next to a max security prison. Boy was that an experience. I was lucky that my parents could help me financially through those.

Dee

I agree, and think teachers should be paid more, period, but that's another thread.

Most of my friends who had internships worked 40 hours/week and either had other part-time jobs to make $$, lived off student loans or had their parents helping them out. I was lucky and able to use my on-campus job for my internship one summer. I worked around 40 hours/week and got paid my normal hourly wage (which wasn't much).

Absolutely! Prior to starting my classes for this Fall, I struggled with the whole notion of continuing my program. I had gotten so frustrated that 3 months of my life I will not be working...and I'm in a Master's program. I no longer have that luxury of living freely as I did as an undergraduate. I'm applying for a student-teaching scholarship. Fortunately, I've saved up money to hold me over that semester and during the summer, but it is ridiculous that you aren't getting paid something. Hell I've heard some teachers say they actually did the teacher's job while the teacher went out and ran errands...:confused:

Yes, I agree about the student teachers being paid issue. What I'd also like to point out is that while student teaching, we also pay for the college credits to be doing so. Thus, we are paying to have a full time job. Kind of a raw deal. :) I have worked this summer to save up enough money to live off of during my semester of student teaching - I am living at home but will still have to buy gas, go out with friends, etc.

An update on my student teaching situation: I spoke with my cooperating teacher last week and she was so NICE to me, which was a welcome change from the first time we met. She told me all about her lesson plans for the first 6 weeks, what she would like me to contribute, etc. and it all sounds completely manageable. She was impressed that I've read all the material on both classes syllabi over the summer. :)

So now I'm much more psyched. I think when I met with her before it was near the end of the year and she was probably stressed. Now she seems really excited to have me in her classroom.

And, I get to go to teacher orientation day on Thursday! I'm super excited. Also, my college requires us to do 20 hours of outside the classroom school involvement (helping with parent teacher conferences, chaperoning dances, etc.). I've spoken with the cheerleading coach about helping with the team (since coaching is what I do outside of teaching!) and I'm really psyched about that too.

Quick question: Aside from student teaching, I will be keeping 2 hours each week working at my gymnastics center coaching. It's just one night each week, and I think it'll be a nice break from teacher responsibilities on Tuesday evenings. :) Do you all think that this will be manageable?

I don't start my student teaching until the spring, but I'm already a little apprehensive. :p Don't get me wrong, I'm excited, but I'm scared I'll get stuck with some horrible teacher who hates me and of course I'll be so poor it ain't funny because my advisor says that it will be very difficult to student teach and work part-time. Yikes!

Val is right. I was friends with the head of teacher education at a college and we had extensive conversations about this.

Teacher education is more a business than a degree field per se.

When you go do your student teaching you are paying full tuition to go work for someone else full time. In this program you even had to by your mentor-teacher a present. It was specified. Including the dollar amount.

Freaking extortion.

But, thats the way game is played.

I completely agree. I think that having to pay tuition to student teach is insane. Why should I be shelling out $1500 so that my supervising teacher can sit in the back of the room all semester? I pay for my own education through scholarships and working part-time, and I have had to take out my first loan this year (something I was trying desperately to avoid) in order to do my student teaching. At my school, we do 2 internships- this semester is a 3-credit internship that consists of 2 full days a week at a school. Our second internship is full-time student teaching and is 12 credits. It is extremely frowned upon by our advisors and professors to work (even part-time) while you are interning. And anyway, its literally impossible to do so during the full-time internship.

We had the same type of set-up for the last portion of nursing school. We were still paying tuition to precept with an RN full time. It is crazy and we sill had one day a week where we had to be in class all day Tuesday and other clinicals to do on Wednesday so that made you get real creative with schedules so that you got all your preceptorship hours in on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday or Monday. Talking about not having a life that was the most hectic, busy semester of my life! After graduation, we then had to pay almost $300 to take boards and get our license....No wonder there are nursing and teaching shortages!!!

Good luck to all of you completing your student teaching. You are going to make a wonderful difference in the lives of our nation's future!

Sarah

I start student teaching tomorrow and I am so nervous! To make it all even more stressful, my internship coordinator is a little disorganized :rolleyes: and still hasn't gotten back to me about who my supervising teacher is or even what time I need to be there. Think positive thoughts for me; I have a feeling I am going to need them.