Reflections on Week Two (Three?)

I've officially completed my second week with students. This was only a three-day week, so it was relatively easy, although that definitely discouraged me from being productive in my planning and work time at school. In fact, today is a teacher workday and my co-op has allowed me to work at the library closer to my house so that I don't have to drive 30-minutes to the high school, and yet, it is 11:00 am and I'm not even out of my pajamas yet.

This week I took on the full-responsibility of teaching Theatre I. This is a big job! I have learned very quickly that student teaching becomes very real, very fast. Work seems to pile up, and it can be overwhelming having to focus simultaneously on the day-to-day operations of each class, while also looking forward to next week, planning those lessons to submit a week in advance, and planning for the focus week of my impact project, which will take place in October. It can be a lot to handle.

And yet, the job remains rewarding. I love working with students. One of my awesome Theatre II's showed me his monologue after school yesterday. I had helped him to find this piece, and he came back saying that he loved it... the monologues are not even due for another few weeks, and he already has his mostly memorized, and has been working on it at home - how amazing! I was so encouraged and inspired by his commitment and enthusiasm. This makes the job worth it, these moments.

Yesterday I also stayed after school to coach the band teacher's son for his middle school audition again, and since we had a meeting for all students interested in participating in school productions this year, some of my students had to stay late to wait for their parents to pick them up, rather than riding the bus like they normally would. So, there were 4-5 students left in the auditorium with me when I was helping R. They kindly agreed to participate in our physical warm-up, and were very happy to do so, and they watched R's work and offered him some really valuable feedback. They encouraged him, reminding him that he is learning things that they are learning in 10th or 11th grade, and he is only in 8th! And on their way out, they told him that he would do a great job at his audition next week.

My students are awesome.

And so, lessons from a student teacher:

• The work is hard
• The time commitment is huge
• You will get tired
• You will mess up
• You will forget things
• And you will be thankful, because it's all worth it.

“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. [Matthew 14:29]