I have been thinking about my first student teaching experience and the challenges that come with being in front of a classroom. It’s not always easy, but that comes with the territory for any job. Any challenge is a learning a opportunity, not a mistake or something to hold a grudge against.
At any rate, teachers should remember this: our students give us precious gifts. For instance, they give us the bulk of their time while they are young. Think about it – with whom do they spend most of their waking hours? Us. With whom do they work hardest (probably)? Us. With whom do they experience the most growth intellectually? Us. Therefore, they give us the gift of time.
For student teachers, they give us a very special gift as well: experience. They allow us to experience their age group in all its glory and all its flaws. They embolden us as we pursue our dream to become educators by helping us figure out how to avoid the disaster in which we just found ourselves by allowing us to experience that disaster. They provide a lot of journal fodder for us, those who should be reflecting on their practice. They do all of this without selfish needs or desires. Indeed, they don’t even know it. That just makes it even more special.
I would just like to say thank you to my students from my first assignment for their time and providing me with useful experiences that will inform and ground my practice in the future. I hope every one of them is as successful in life as they wish to be, happy, and at peace.
If you’d like to know more about how MAT@USC can prepare you to take your teaching credential online and make a difference in your local community, contact our Admissions office at 888.MAT.1USC or email us at matadmit@usc.edu.
