Earlier this week, I was walking from the parking lot of one of our high schools towards the main academic building when I came across a woman who seemed to be headed in the same direction as me.  I said hello and asked her what had brought her to campus.  Turns out she was a student teacher finishing up her first full semester in the classroom.  She also taught Spanish, which happened to be what I taught before I left the classroom for administration.  I asked a few questions as we walked, the kind you might anticipate in such a  situation.  How has your experience been?  What have you enjoyed about the classroom?  She mentioned the intense days in the classroom and the extended planning at night.  She was genuinely upbeat and optimistic., but also ready for the upcoming holiday break.  She had certainly earned it.  After a short interaction, we split off to our different destinations.

This short interaction put me in a reflective mood about my own student teaching experience.  I look back fondly on those first weeks and months in the classroom.  I still think of the students who went out of their way to encourage me, as well as those who embraced their opportunity to challenge the newbie.  I remember Melvin, a student I simply failed to reach, whose resistance drove my problem solving engines on a daily basis.  I think about my mentor teacher, Ms. Thomas, whose grace and humility working with an over-confident twenty-something upstart I am only now beginning to fully appreciate.

That semester of student teaching was certainly a crash course in all things education.  You have to do everything for the first time.  The amount of thinking, planning, prepping, designing, and revising comes at a pace faster than you can process.  When a lesson falls flat, you just have to move on.  There isn’t time or space to pick up the pieces as the next class of 35 students is filing in.  The resilience and stamina required is incredible, as is the vertical incline of the learning curve.  The physical demands mount, as do the emotional challenges as you wade through disappointments and triumphs.  You get exposed to the inevitable colds and flus of working at a school.   I even lost my voice.

But the learning is remarkable.  Student teaching is about developing your technical core as a teacher – translating curriculum and standards into lesson plans, practicing basic instructional strategies and classroom management techniques.  Every day you are improving and tweaking, failing and moving forward.  And that iterative insight goes far beyond think pair shares and guided note-taking.  Student teaching is an introduction into the deeply human endeavor of motivating, engaging, and developing our children and young people.

I’m not sure I would want to go back and start all over again.  The skills of an experienced teacher or administrator are too hard fought for that.  But I certainly celebrate and encourage those who are embarking on their own professional journey.  As I watched this aspiring teaching make her way to the classroom again, I felt nothing but respect.