Some background info-student teaching prep week

Throughout the next seventeen weeks, this blog will be devoted to documenting the perils of the student teacher. Undoubtedly, there will be many highs, and lows, and inevitable freak-outs covered during this period. There seems to be a lot of interesting and/or important things about getting down the details of this sort of program, which will come out in the rest of this evening's blog and in the coming weeks. 

Previous to starting this semester, I have only a slight clue as to what is going on. Here is what I know:

I will spend a semester, or sixteen weeks, teaching some form of social studies at a local high school. This semester will be split into two eight week blocks . I don't know if I will change after the eighth week or not. I assume so in order to experience more classes, but then again...I also know that I will be observed on four lessons. What the observer wants...I'm not sure, although I have heard from some teachers that I need to document each lesson I teach in a three-ring binder. Super math time out! Let's say I have five classes a day. With five days a week that's twenty-five classes a week, times sixteen weeks=400 lessons or so-give or take with the holidays and tests and whatnot. Anyways, here is an interesting confession. I will be teaching "social studies", which include the histories, philosophy (sometimes), sociology, political science, economics, psychology, and geography. During my five years of college, I've had ONE soc. class, TWO political science classes, ONE economics class, TWO psychology classes, and ONE geography class. Let me also say that I did not get "top marks" in those classes. I guess Gen. Eds can be important in college...go figure.  

Now for a bit of background concerning the education program I am involved in. The student teaching program is the last hurdle in the education program at my university. Thus far, concerning the education department, I have completed two thirty-hour practicums, one three hour observation, and forty plus hours of volunteer work. These coincided with about five total courses. The most outstanding result of following the minimum requirements of this program is that I have spent only TWO hours in front of students, teaching two lessons plans. TWO. Starting next week I will be attempting to work through those 400 or so lessons I mentioned. But, thanks to the lovely, unstandardized world of student teaching, I really don't have any idea exactly what I will be taking on. Needless to say, I am a bit anxious about taking on this kind of teaching load. For some strange reason, I don't exactly feel prepared with my three methods courses (one methods course was devoted to righting the wrongs of the previous course) and two hours of teaching. One thing I have figured out thus far: teaching is quite difficult...if you do it well. 

Considering some of the questions I have received by everyone around me, I should set straight the situation of the student teacher for my final remarks here. I will not get paid. In fact, I had to pay for fifteen hours of credit in order to student teach, which as I have hinted at thus far, is like actual teaching. Some people have compared this to some sort of warped communism, or even slavery. I agree wholeheartedly. Its a warped system, where students have to pay and are not compensated. At the very least, I should get paid minimum wage, like an internship. The really funny thing about this is that our administrator of the program demands that any student taking place in the student teaching refrain from working as it will take away from concentrating on teaching. So. In accordance with her desires, I will be living without a job and working on teaching for 12-14 hours a day, and in two or three months, this blog will be brought to you from wi-fi hot zones, trying to charge my computer for free while I make due on a diet of scraps left over from people who don't throw their trash away in restaurants. 

Currently Reading-Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts by Sam Wineburg

Currently Listening-Plans by Death Cab for Cutie