Who am I

This week I have been looking at, thinking about and reflecting on the growth and progress that I have made thus far in student teaching. It has been a crazy roller coaster ride of successes failures and chances. I used to joke about coming out of student teaching having earned your teacher voice, that voice that lets students know you mean business, even if they are not your students. Once I passed through the Fall semester at Penn State a new ideal emerged of coming out of student teaching and being able to see the changes that had occurred, a goal of knowing that I had grown as an educator.

As my cooperating teacher and I sat down this week and went through my midterm evaluation I continue to reflect on my weeks completed and the weeks to come. What changes do I want to see in these next few weeks, what goals do I continue to have, who do I want to be when I come out of this experience?

So my blog this week is going to be a little different, I want to reflect on yes my week, but what this week says about me, who am I as an educator at this point?

This week I found out that I did not make it to a second round interview for a job I thought I really wanted. As I processed the reality and began to reflect on why this was and what type of program I was best suited for I began to realize that the location of the program played a large factor in my decision to apply there. Don't get me wrong the program is amazing and will continue to flourish, but it doesn't matter how amazing a program or job is, if its truly not for you. I am continuing my job search and know two things, one I will have no regrets in the end because I went, I tried, and I gave it my all. The second thing I know is that I can roll with the punches, I do not and will not let an unexpected class or experience get me down.

Additional this week we are in the heart or disassembling our engines, something that quite frankly I was dreading. What I have learned this week is that the units that I fear make me a better educator. I work harder to learn that knowledge and keep ahead of those students to ensure that I am prepared to engage them. This also means that every success my students have is an even greater success for me, for example we started the week removing our flywheels, something many students were terrified of doing. We went over the procedure together and then they were off, supporting each other as they embarked on this task. As the teacher I was ecstatic as one by one the groups removed their first flywheel. In my mind there were explosions, parades, and little engines all about. I had a similar reaction as I completed a demonstration on removing the piston rings and a student then demonstrating to the class was successful. I was a million times more excited then most of my students, they think, well I do not know what they think, but I'm sure it has something to do with crazy. So what does this say about me, I think it says that I have passion, enough passion to make anyone smile about a subject, even on the worst day.

Finally this week I realized that I do and will always put my students first. My students are excited to tell me about their life, experiences, hopes, dreams, and reality. It has been a hectic week as our banquet approaches, our county degree selection occurred, and proficiency applications were due today. Even as I write this blog I am helping a student put the final touches on their application. As I am helping this student, something happened that has happened a lot and it melts my heart. The student I was helping was concerned that I would not have enough time to have my blog completed . There was a mutual concern for the success of the other.  What does this say about me, simply I care and my students know that. To me that is one of the greatest success I could achieve while student teaching, having my students know that I want to be there, its not just something I do, its who I am.

This week we played 10,000 dollar pyramid, demonstrated LD50 values, removed flywheels, demonstrated piston ring removal, had a county meeting, wrote sub plans, had an observation, completed soil tests, and so much more. It all says something about me and by the end of student teaching I will be able to put it all together, who am I as an educator.

Till next time...