My Advice

Student Teaching is an amazing experience. Working with students can be so rewarding. We work so hard in college to get ready to step out and try teaching in the real world, and finally during your professional semester you get the opportunity. Going into the semester I was focusing on lessons, standards, and school requirements. Now from this end I see the whole experience was really about interacting with students. Here are a few things I feel made my experience a great one.

From my first day I was determined to have good classroom control. I wasn’t there to be my students “buddy” and I am so thankful I had this approach. I showed my students right from the start that they would obey me 100% or there would be consequences. I may not have been their favorite student teacher the first two weeks, but it was worth it. After those first couple weeks, except on the rare occasion, I was able to relax with my students and have more fun. They already knew that I demanded good behavior from them, and this meant that I could now spend my time teaching and doing fun activities. I truly feel that if I would have been to “fun” at the beginning that I would have been fighting my classes the whole semester.

The other advice that I have is to take the time to listen to your students. So many of them have home lives that we cannot even fathom. Many times students just need someone there that seems to care about their everyday stories. The most amazing part of my student teaching experience was making connections with a few of my students in this way. When you earn the trust and respect of your students by taking the time to care about them, you not only make a difference in their life, but you will also get so much more out of these students in your class.

Student teaching is very difficult at times, but don’t get so lost in your “requirements” that you forget to take the time to enjoy what is important, all of those kids in your classes.

I really hope you enjoy your experience, as I did. Good luck!