Student Teaching

The moment has finally come. Tomorrow morning at 8 am I will officially be a student teacher. This freaks me out, and if it is weird for you, it is probably ten times weirder for me.

It’s not weird because I don’t feel ready or prepared, because I am ready. It’s just that since I was three years old I have imagined myself doing what I am about to embark on tomorrow. When I was that small I actually played teacher in our playroom in the basement. My mom gave me her old teacher books and lesson plan books and my dad bought me a large marker board with dry erase markers and then my imagination went wild. Let me tell you too, I was the best dang teacher that playroom has ever seen (my sister may disagree).

And now, I am no longer wearing my mom’s high heels that my feet didn’t fit into or putting on blue eye shadow to make myself look more grown up and teacher like. Instead, I have shoes that fit, my own planning book, and I don’t wear the blue eye shadow (thank goodness!).
Beginning tomorrow morning what I have been preparing for basically my whole life is going to be tested and graded. The next fifteen weeks are the final moments of putting everything I have learned and observed into final practice, proving that I do indeed deserve that Indiana Teaching License.

Tonight feels strange because this is the first time that I am not writing down my class schedule or making sure I have the right books for school the next day. Those days have passed. Tomorrow is the real deal; a whole new adventure in the fifth grade.

So, sitting here tonight going to bed much earlier than I would be if I just had classes to attend, I have become more acutely aware of how in just a blink of an eye life goes by. It seems like only yesterday I was playing dress up and scribbling on a white board teaching a bunch of dolls how to spell ‘cat.’ And soon, student teaching will be over too, and then I will just be a Huntington University Alumni. But, I think for now I need to take this one day at a time.

Roanoke Elementary…I am yours.