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.
Despite the difficulties of getting little sleep or trying to get through a school with next-level security measures, one factor still looms larger than anything else in the life of a student teacher. Age. We as student teachers find ourselves in that perfect middle ground regarding age: we’re separated, in a sense, from every other person in the school. Being only four to five years older than high school juniors and seniors is a weird place to be because we all grew up appreciating a lot of the same things. I’ll hear them mention television shows, movies, music, and plenty of popular memes that I understand and enjoy, but at the same time can’t necessarily talk to them about in depth. Conversely, student teachers are several years younger than even the youngest teachers, and thus it can be difficult to find someone to take the student teacher seriously as a colleague. Most teachers seem surprised when a good student teacher can talk about anything deep and intelligent and keep up with them in conversation. The student teacher is too old and in too much of a position of power to fit in with the students but too young to truly fit in with the faculty.
Don’t misunderstand, Student Teaching is hard. It’s a lot of long days at the school, heading back to the college for all the homework that’s required, conferences, and attempting to work a second job to afford food, all while trying to maintain enough of a social life so that you’ll have somebody to talk to on the weekend. But, I find that I’m utterly in love with it.
Being able to be in the classroom and to feel like a teacher, the job that I’ve been preparing for the last few years, is such a wonderful experience. Getting to work with students from different walks of life than I had experienced and getting to see them as that lightbulb clicks and they finally understand the content – it’s awesome. I’ve been given one of the best teachers to be working with (something that I’m told at almost every turn by everyone who has ever worked alongside him) in one of the best school communities that I’ve ever stepped foot in. Teachers actually get along and too often they’re prepared to help if anything seems wrong. I’ve been treated to meals, given actual helpful advice on most days, and had a listening ear anytime anything goes poorly. And sure, some folks may give me a hard time if I come in and say I’m tired or mention the multiple classes that I’m required to take while teaching, but overall the experience couldn’t be better. That is, unless I got paid.
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.
