Overall Student Teaching Experience

I am finished with one month of student teaching, and I feel like I am a true teacher. Because it was the "veteran's" first time teaching also, we all worked together as a team. The student teachers were just as important as she was, and we earned the respect of our students.
I went into the Mississippi Teacher Corps as Aaron, but now I am Mr. Thompson. Along with the change in name came a change in character. While I am still a shy person, I am starting to become more confident about myself. I have had almost thirty students' lives in my hands for half a day, five days a week, four weeks. The students made me have a deeper respect for the teaching profession, because I realized how impressionable their minds are at that age. I hope to be both effective and a positive influence for students in Hollandale, because in some ways I feel like they might need it just a little more than students at Lafayette High did this summer. With higher poverty and less opportunities, the students in Hollandale will need good teachers and role models to help them push the slightly larger obstacles out of their way.
As a whole, the student teaching experience was one of the most essential elements to becoming a teacher. If there are any programs that simply put new teachers in the classroom in August, I assure you that you will find a lower percentage of effective teachers. Student teaching is important because you become a teacher, but you have a support system to help you. I actually liked this version (with three other student teachers in the classroom) better, because each person had something new to teach the others. While student teaching was difficult, fun, and rewarding, I look forward to being a teacher with my own class. Hollandale, I'll see you soon.