Student teaching has taken over my life. If I’m being truly honest, then you should know that I spend just about every waking moment rehearsing lessons in my head, or looking for fun activities to do with my students. I have dreams about excerpts from books, and I spend more time than I’d care to admit analyzing my performance in the classroom. My husband may or may not be looking for his real wife, because she seems to have been replaced with a teaching-crazed monster.

Is student teaching hard? You bet.

I thought I was busy before student teaching started, but I was wrong. Sure my weekends are devoted to grading, and lesson planning, but teaching is a labor of love. I don’t want to sound like it’s all work, and no play because it isn’t. My cohorts are going through the same things as me, and we always make time to get dinner, or head out for coffee. Sometimes it helps just to back away from Form E (the QU lesson plan format) for a while, and read a book for pleasure.

If I’m really stuck I know I can reach out to my Quinnipiac professors. Professor McCarthy has had to listen to more than a few crazy tales, and I’m sure I’ll be calling him again over the next five weeks. While student teaching is hard it would be much harder if the Master of Arts in Teaching program hadn’t prepared me so well. And it would be harder still if I didn’t have my cohorts around to listen.

I’m nervous every time I step in front of the classroom, but those nerves keep me grounded. The nerves let me know that what I’m doing is worthwhile. I’ll leave you with this quote from Aristotle. I keep it in my back pocket for the days that I’m feeling a little down.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

-Cyndi Frank

Cyndi graduated for Southern Connecticut State University in 2010 with an undergraduate degree in English with a concentration in Creative Writing.