A student teacher shadows a professional status teacher and gradually takes on responsibilities to learn what the career is like, and to demonstrate the necessary skills. In this day and age of exceedingly high standards-based evaluations, this is no easy task for a young person.
Having a student teacher is a mixed blessing. It means altering the curriculum to accommodate their interests and ideas. It means letting go a bit and letting him or her take the reigns. It means looking carefully at my own practice and performance every day and making sure I am in top form (honestly, I do try every day to do that, really, but being human I feel like I fall short in a lot of ways...) It also means having another pair of eyes and hands in the classroom, someone to help out, offer insights to the kids, and helping prepare a new teacher in the field. That's a good thing. The more the merrier, so I agreed to take one on. My first student teacher, Krista, was fantastic. I couldn't have asked for a better person to work with and honestly wish we could have hired her at our school. Top notch, and she got a job right away at her former high school. She helped me become a better teacher for the reasons I listed above, and know that this new student teacher will help me grow, too. Game on!
Status quo doesn't help the journey of growth, in art or anywhere else. Cheers.
What will you make today?