This is Not the End

Dear Michaela,

You’ve been waiting for this year for a long time. This is the year where you finally get to try your hand at the profession that has been calling your name since you were a sophomore in high school. You’re pumped up. You’re excited. You’re optimistic.  

And all of that is great.

But please understand that student teaching will not be anything that you thought it would be.

There are so many things you do not know.  And that you cannot possibly know, until you gain experience.

Experience truly is the greatest teacher, and you need to respect that.

You’ve been hearing the same advice in classes for 2 years now, and because of that you think you know how to apply it.

Unfortunately, you do not.

You do not know how to maintain an appropriate teacher relationship with students.

You do not know how to be strict and firm but also caring and personable.

You do not know the power of think time. Or the simple yet magnificent power of a timer.

You do not know how much the students in your classroom are going through.

You do not know that sometimes you truly have to accept that there are some students who you are not going to be able to reach. 

Granted, these are all things you have heard millions of time before. But you won’t actually KNOW them, until…you do. 

It’s a pretty crazy phenomenon actually. One day you will wake up and it will seem like every other day, but then you will step into your classroom to realize that something has clicked.  And you actually GET IT.  You get what your professors were saying when they told you that you’re not allowed to bend on the rules. And you get what Dr. Cramer was trying to say when she told you that you need to work on your lesson delivery.

You’ll feel confident.

You’ll feel like the real deal.

You’ll feel like a teacher.

So my one piece of advice is this: be patient.

Give yourself grace and understand that you’re going to be bad at teaching in the beginning because the most important skills that make a good teacher cannot be taught (ironically). You have to feel them. You have to experience them. You have to inherit them.

So understand that this year is supposed to be painful. And uncomfortable.   And a little bit miserable.

Because that means you’re growing.

And if you’re not feeling a little bit lost and confused, then you probably aren’t doing it right.

You’re nervous and stressed and anxious because you care. And you’re pushing yourself. 

Eventually these feelings will go away. And you’ll start to formulate new fears and anxieties that make your student teaching worries seem laughable.

This is growth.

This is the whole point.

So quit being a baby and allow yourself to be humbled.

Allow yourself this time to learn and soak it all in.

This is only the beginning.

Not the end.