A Tale of Student Teaching - Linky Party

Hello all! If you've visited my blog before, you know that I'm a first year teacher. So when I saw this linky party over at The Polished Teacher about student teaching, I just had to join in. I loved student teaching, and since I just completed it, why not share? :)

I had an awesome student teaching experience. I was so so nervous going into it... What if my teacher was mean? What if I was horrible? What if I hated it? What if I got a bad evaluation? So many "what ifs". But after the first day, I knew I was going to love it. My teacher and I clicked immediately. She helped me so much. My principal, the other teachers, even the cafeteria workers and custodians- were all so nice and welcoming. My class was hilarious. So smart and fun. I wouldn't trade those months for anything. 

1. My favorite student teaching memory. 

Well, obviously, I couldn't choose just one. My last day was beyond perfect. My kids "surprised" me with an ice cream party and a basket of teacher goodies. They all wrote me the sweetest, cutest, most hilarious goodbye letters. I took them home, read them, and cried my eyes out. I still have all the gifts, notes, and pictures they drew me. Some of them are still up on my fridge. I could cry right now just thinking about how sweet and funny they were. They made going to "work" every day a joy. Truly.

2. My worst student teaching memory/learning experience.

This was hard. I definitely had days where I came home and crawled under the covers to hide from life (anybody else do this??) There were days that I was so frustrated and exhausted and just spent. The most stressful times for me were probably the three times that may professor came to observe me. I'm a perfectionist and I'm really hard on myself. I wanted everything to go perfectly and smoothly and magically come together into the most beautiful, well-planned lesson every time. This, of course, did not happen. We work with kids, duh. So while I loved my experience, those days were always crazy stressful.

3. My student teaching advice? Be a sponge. Soak up as much of your experience as you can. Love your kids. Go to everything. Make copies of stuff for your future classroom. Go visit other grade levels. Try new things. Make things for your kids. Teach lessons in your least favorite subjects. Work hard. Don't sit down. Ask questions. Don't get on your phone. Don't just sit there. Find something to do- whether it's grading papers, helping students, making copies, planning lessons, cleaning up, filing, anything. Make your teacher's life easier. Don't stress the small things. Enjoy truly being a "student" teacher. It goes by way too fast :)

Got some advice to share? Or just want to reminisce on your experience? Head over to The Polished Teacher and link up!

I'm off to work on posts for next week! Look for my big classroom reveal on Tuesday ;)