2.18.05 Student Teachers Work Overtime

Student teachers work overtime

The final semester of college is the time when graduating seniors start to think about the inevitable adulthood that awaits us beyond May 15.

We ponder jobs; in detail, future incomes; where we might live; the potential loss of “gasp” Internet access; debt; and just how many doctors’ appointments we can squeeze in before being booted from our parents’ insurance policies. We turn a dull 22 or 23 years old, our last college birthdays paling in comparison to the illustrious 21st birthday.

Second-semester seniors deal with all of these things, punctuated nicely by a light course schedule containing one or two of the wonderful core courses that have been strategically put off until the last possible moment. Unless, of course, you are an education major. Talk to any education major right now.

We are only about two weeks into our 14-week student-teaching engagement, and we’re exhausted.

Our days are long ones, spent immersed in our future field of expertise. We’re essentially doing 40-hour work weeks, only to come home to grade papers and stacks of written lesson plans.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m not flat-out complaining — not until you want to discuss your plans for Spring Break.

Susquehanna has a stellar education department that prides itself on sending well-qualified, dedicated individuals out into the world as student teachers who will later pursue the search for classrooms to call their own.

Allow yourself to be amazed by student-teachers. In your educational experience, one or two have most likely eclipsed your classroom.

I’m sure that as a kid you likened them to your full-time teacher, who you already thought went home to a house decorated with apple-shaped paraphernalia and sharpened pencils.

You should know now that this isn’t so. People need to realize that student-teaching is much more than the proverbial red pen and report card. Student teachers are the people who get up at 6 a.m., return to campus at or beyond 4 p.m., attend practice, grab dinner, go to work-study and attend a slue of meetings, only to crash into bed before midnight.

A student teacher’s weekend is a blessing. Suddenly 9 a.m. seems to qualify as “sleeping late.”

We’re happy to do all of this and keep plugging through with a smile as we make our transition into “reality” a few months earlier than our peers, despite the exhaustion.

But, if I could ask a few favors, it would be these: Don’t call me after midnight, fill me in on campus occurrences and let us talk — dorky as it may seem to you — about our classes and students. Oh, and if you could send me a postcard from Spring Break, that would be great.

– Kelly Jennings ‘05