Count Down:2 Days

In 2 Days I will be a student teacher!

I wanted to start this blog for multiple reasons:

My roommate, Bria, who has been my best friend since seventh grade, and I had blogs our junior year of high school. We forgot about them until very recently and when we remembered them we laughed and laughed and laughed at ourselves for hours. So, my first reason for writing this blog: so that four years from now I can laugh at myself.

I have a lot of family who are or were teachers, so my second reason: so that they can laugh at me too! No, actually I would really appreciate feedback, stories, constructive criticism, advice, or whatever you have for me!

My last reason for writing this blog is just so that I can always look back, remember, and learn.

So, two more days until I am officially a student teacher! I'm pretty sure I'm ready. I've got my placement, I've talked to my cooperating teacher, I have all of my tools ready for the assignments I have to do in the school, and I've bought my lunch box.

My placement is at Paw Paw Elementary School in Paw Paw, Illinois. It's about a 35 minute drive from DeKalb so it's not too bad. My cooperating teacher, Beth Foose, has told me that I couldn't have been placed in her class during a better year because she only has four students in the morning and two in the afternoon. I forgot to ask what grades and disabilities....oops.... I have three classes at NIU that I have assignments from to do while I am in the school. It makes me nervous how much work we have to do in the short time that we are in the school, but my professors this semester have been really understanding and flexible. Now, as far as my lunch box goes, being a poor college student and soon-to-be poor special ed teacher, although I could afford the lunch box, my parents are the ones paying for the food that goes in it, which I find kind of sad since I don't even live with them at the moment. I took a special trip home to get this lunch box food!

Over the summer, I was having a hard time figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. For a while, I was so afraid of going into an elementary school and being a teacher that I considered changing my major.

Changing my major at this point would have meant not graduating in four years, so I was willing to put my life on hold just to avoid going into a school and finding out I'm a horrible teacher. I wanted to change my major to psychology, so I enrolled in a psychology class to see how I would like it....I HATE it! I have never been more sure of the fact that I am meant to be a teacher than I am right now. The closer I get to my first day, the more my excitement outweighs my nervousness.