Student Teaching: What I Wish I Had Learned From College Classes Before Teaching

Northlander.org is the online persona of Dan Bowling, a web developer living in Missoula, MT.

Published In:
Education, Student Teaching
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03/14/06

Student teachign is an interesting experience, and there is very little that you can do to prepare for it. That being said, I have decided to come up with a list of things that, in retrospect, I would have liked to have picked up (more) while I was in the safety of a college class.

College didn’t prepare me for:

Classroom management… Ok, so I got an entire course on it… It wasn’t enough, and I didn’t get to practice them early enough. All the plans assume that the students care about grades and success, many don’t, so the strategies don’t work.
Learning names… I have learned about 60 new names so far, but I have a lot more students than that. It is never a fun thing to hand a test back to the wrong student.
Dodgeing pickles… today I had to dodge the flaming portions of my pickle demonstration that escaped from my safe area. The blast shield protected the students, but somhow did little for me, who was operating it from the back.
Budgeting… granted, I am not doing budgeting work while student teaching, but I was fairly lost in all the discussion that was going about while I sat in on a team meeting.
Code blue… I am glad this hasn’t happened while I was teaching so far, I still really don’t know what to do because the concept was invented after I left high school.
Break up fights… what can I do if I see two children fighting? Will I get sued?
Get to the bottom of things… when someone acuses someone else of some nasty deed. (though written statements, before they can talk to each other, works well in some situations).

So, if you are an education major, I suggest that you find these things out, especially the first one… classroom management is your most important skill as a teacher, it will make or break you.

2 Comments

jenny b
03/17/06

well…
you’d think that you would learn from the legacy of jim fennessy! he once lit the desk and the floor on fire in my chemistry class, and he didn’t have a blast shield to protect us it just made class more interesting.
good luck, dan.

angie busby
03/17/06

Hey dan~
I am dealing with the same stuff that you are now. Classroom management–not a fun thing but for us, if they act up they do not get courtyard time or they have to stand by the wall during it an not talk or move. As for names, you know how bad I am at that. I just have students pass out papers to teach other. As for fights, we have had several major duckers since I have been here and the cops that stay at school are called to come take care of it. Teachers are not really to get involved other than to keep the other students safe or to try the yelling method of breaking up the fight. This school as a push button system to reach the cops in each classroom so its a pretty good system so far. Other than that—good luck!! We had a hurricane drill the other day and that was definatly interesting!!! Keep up the good work and graduation is coming up!