First Days of Student Teaching!

    Wow! I can't say enough to describe how wonderful this transition to a new journey of life has been. For those of you who don't know, I am student teaching freshman English I at Carencro High School. Go Bears! First and foremost, I have to point out just how supported I feel in this whole student teaching thing. I posted to Facebook that I was starting today, and the response was overwhelming with people wishing me luck and promising to pray for me. After seeing that, I felt really, really confident. Not to mention my Aunt Karen, who has been the most helpful lifeline in all of this. She used to teach English, and has made it apparent that she's available for anything I need to discuss. I'm so thankful that we're growing closer because of this experience. She's definitely a great one to learn from! It's great to know that the people in my life believe in me. They really think I can do this, and do it well! As a result, I have made up my mind to live up to what the people in my life believe I can do!

    So what was my first day like? Well, back up for a sec. The day before student teaching I started to feel achy and bleh. Then came the sore throat, runny nose. Awesome! I am sick! By this morning, I was not feeling too hot. But I simply loaded myself up with medicine and stuck it out. Lucky for me, my first day in the classroom was extremely laid back! The class was watching Romeo + Juliet, so for five periods I watched the same segment of the movie. In the words of Coach Kovatch (my awesome supervising teacher!), it was a bit anticlimactic for a first day, but I am definitely not complaining! Despite being sick, I enjoyed it very much! Coach Kovatch is that coach in high school that everyone in the school loves. He seems to have everyone wrapped around his finger. He informed me that that every teacher needs to be on the good side of three people: the janitors, the secretaries, and the lunch ladies. Good advice!!

   Needless to say, I'm having a wonderful time. It's good to finally be in the classroom, putting all the things I've learned into practice. But in the spirit of complete disclosure, there are a few small things I don't like. One thing is the things Coach Kovatch tells me about the kids. He makes comments every now and then about how this kid or that kid isn't the brightest, this one is a basket case, etc. Once again, he's wonderful to work with. I can tell he has a great relationship with most of them, but I kind of wish he had higher expectations for them. A part of me, a very loud and passionate part of me, wants to tell him, "Hey! They can achieve as much as you expect them to achieve!" But all I can do is believe in them myself. I have high expectations for them. They're gonna do great things. It's easy to get discourage, especially with Coach's commentary about the students, but I refuse to let it get me down. Because when I feel discouraged, I have to remind myself... "Greater is He that is in me than he who is in the world!" I'm here for a purpose. :]

   In closing, I just want to recap on something Eric spoke about at TNL tonight. He posed this question for us to reflect on from Matthew 20:32, “What do you want me to do for you?” As I thought and prayed about this, the answer that surfaced was this: I want to see my students succeed academically, I want them to know that they are valued and loved, and ultimately come to know Him. Seriously, that's all I want. That's it. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I can't do any of those things on my own. But once again, greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world.