The Great Awakening

Well, I must say I have visualized my student teaching since the day I entered the Middle Grades program at UNCG. Where would I be teaching? What grade would I be teaching? Which of my content areas would I be undertaking? What would my students be like? What would I wear? Let’s begin by saying – the only vision I had that remained intact would be the wardrobe. Everything, and I do mean everything, has been so much more than I expected.

My first shock came when I received a call from my cooperating teacher over the summer explaining that instead of completing my student teaching in Language Arts, as I had planned, we would now be teaching both language arts and social studies. After my initial kick of sheer excitement, I was immediately hit with – what felt like – a two ton brick in my stomach. Two content areas meant two preps, two sets of lessons, two sets of assessments, two sets of modifications, and most importantly two times the impact! I was instantly petrified that I would irrevocably scar my students and go down in history as the biggest student teaching failure of all time. (A little dramatic I know!) I am rather pleased to say I have yet to fulfill either of those initial predictions! In fact, the two content experience has taught me, what I believe is, the first life-long lesson of teaching…