1/3 Done!

Wow, I can't believe it. We are already five weeks into this semester, with ten more to go. Next week starts week six! That means that we are already 1/3 of the way done with our first semester and I am 1/6 of the way done with my senior year of college! Time sure has gone by fast.

For me, the conclusion of the first five weeks brings about a large adjustment. I will now begin student teaching full-time, Monday through Friday, starting on Monday and continuing for the rest of the semester. My first-semester classes here at Bluffton are ending today and now my homework load will be different. Notice that I didn't say my homework load will be lessened. I will have 15 lesson plans each week to write and prepare for, I will have homework to grade, and quizzes and tests to write and grade.

I began writing my lesson plans yesterday for next week. It took me forever to write six of them. I still have eleven more to go and am already sick of them! LOL! The Education Department here at Bluffton has a form that we must fill out for every lesson that we teach. While, I hate filling them out as they are very time consuming, they allow me to really think about the lesson I am going to teach--the amount of time each activity should take, the materials that are needed for the lesson, the resources that are needed to make the lesson a success, etc., etc., etc.

For the next five weeks I will be teaching math. I am nervous about taking over the classroom, but I really enjoy the students in my math classes and my cooperating teacher. I know that over the next five weeks, I will have my eyes opened to so many new things...I know that I will walk away from this experience a much better teacher and possibly even a better person. I am glad that the Education Department at Bluffton makes all of the education majors visit schools and observe classrooms for so many hours a semester, starting one's first semester in the education program. Because of this, I am comfortable in the classroom and I know that I want to be a teacher, but no matter how many classes I have taken, how many textbooks I have read, and how many hours I have observed students and teachers, I know that only my clinical practice (student teaching) experience can prepare me for the occupation that I am about to embark upon.