The most accurate depiction of any given day in a student teacher’s life must start at about 10 p.m. Any good student teacher attempts to get a minimum of eight hours of solid sleep because they know that teaching requires you to be able to stand up for long periods of time. The issue with this is that absolutely no other college student ever gets eight hours of sleep. I have four other roommates, and none of them is even thinking about sleep when I’m settling into bed. Whether they’re storming into our shared bedroom at midnight because they can’t find their textbook or they’re watching Netflix entirely too loudly while they slurp down a quick cup of noodles, they don’t understand the idea of quiet. Additionally, college men apparently lack the ability to move anywhere in the dark without knocking something over. There are either loud crashes as fans hit the ground, or every single light in the entire apartment is suddenly blasting through my closed eyelids. Either way, truly getting a full night of sleep seems impossible even for the best student teacher.

Fast-forward about five hours, the time that has become a full night’s sleep. The morning is the same as it would be for any other teacher. Shower, brush teeth, dress nicely, make lunch, get everything together in the car, and head to school. I usually get to school early to make sure that I have time to get together anything else that I’ve forgotten to do. However, as a student teacher, I am not given keys to any of the rooms in the school. Luckily enough, the front doors are always open, but, unluckily, I’m usually here a good 10 or 20 minutes before my cooperating teachers. It leads to a lot of conversation with the other teachers in the hallway, but most of these involve me looking like a sad puppy and asking if they’d please unlock the door for me for the fourth day in a row. [This is only part of the article. Want to read more? Subscribe to the website by choosing "Register" from the menu above. It's free!]

Adam Nottoli is a 9th semester senior at Hope College (Holland, MI) with a major in English and a minor in Psychology. While he walked in May, he’ll officially graduate in December, once he finishes his student teaching.