The last semester of a college student's life feels a bit like limbo, especially for a Student-Teacher. The world expects you to take on a lot of the responsibilities of a real-live grown-up, but in so many ways, you're really still a college kid. It's really weird, and pretty frustrating sometimes. The good news is that I love being a student-teacher. For the first time in a long time, I am 100% certain that God created me to teach and that I am right where I belong. It is such a blessed and peaceful feeling. It makes all the hard stuff a lot easier to deal with.
For those of you who may not really be able to understand just what I mean about the ambiguity of a student-teacher's life, here's what a typical day looks like. I'm afraid that it looks more and more like the real world every day.
6:00 am Awakened by vibrating cell phone alarm. Removes ear plugs, crawls out of bed, and staggers into the bathroom to be further awakened by warm morning shower.
6:15 am Checks email and Facebook. Packs breakfast, lunch, and daily snack.
7:10 am Leaves dorm room dressed "professionally."
7:30 am Arrives at High School 15 minutes before cooperating teacher, adjusts the thermostat in classroom, and gets herself ready for the day.
8:00am The day officially begins 2hours after she woke up, but 1 hour before it used to begin.
9:40am Teaches 9th graders Language Arts concepts they should have mastered at least 3 years ago.
10:30am Conferences with cooperating teacher during planning period, has quick snack and bathroom break before next class begins.
12:03 pm Blessed lunchtime
1:35 pm Daily hall duty: aka "Make sure the crazy kids don't kill each other."
3:15 pm School day ends
3:25 pm Leaves school
3:50 pm Arrives back on campus, picks up Rob-Bob to go shopping for Monica's lingerie shower this weekend.
4:45pm Arrives back on campus, goes to dorm room to check email, eat dinner, and begin work on lesson plans for this week's official evaluation.
5:50pm Goes to the Reynolds for Spring Sing Vocal Track practice.
7:30pm Goes to gym to work out.
8:20pm Arrives back in dorm room to take a quick shower and work on lesson plans.
8:55pm Goes back to the Reynolds for Regina club meeting.
9:35 pm Back in dorm room to finish lesson plans, read Bible, decide on tomorrow's wardrobe choice, blog, and chat with friends online a bit.
10:30pm Gather things for tomorrow and begin nightly routine.
11:00 pm Lights out
6:00 am Do it all over again.
Occasionally other teachers at my school will ask me if this is still really what I want to do, what I want my life to be like. Some days it feels like way too much to handle. But, most days it's practically perfect.
The good news is that your actual life hopefully won't involve quite as long a commute, a lot more money, and three months off in the summer to do what you want. Teaching ain't that bad of a gig.
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