Mentoring Student Teachers

[jayhawk]

So, I'm considering the Teacher Ready program and there's the student teaching component. I've already reached out to one school I'm particularly interested in, but the experience begs the question, are student teachers appreciated/welcomed? Seen as a burden? Other? What are your thoughts?

[marieh]

I personally had a difficult time finding a mentor for the TeacherReady program. The TR program director was willing to set me up with a school, but it was an hour and a half away and not accessible by public transportation. Instead, I applied to several of the Tier 1/2 schools in my area with only limited success. Most said that they already had too many student teachers for the year, some said they didn't have someone who could mentor me in my subject/grade levels, and only one school said that I could do my student teaching there, but they were also too far away to consider.

In the end, I had to get a full time teaching job at a private school. The plus side to this is that I now have a year of experience teaching my subject in addition to having completed my TR program requirements. No, the experience may not count in terms of my salary scale, but I spent a lot more time in the classroom that I would have doing part-time observations/teaching at an IS.

Just my 2 cents, of course.

[MedellinHeel]

To clarify you are not really a student teacher in the conventional sense (atleast how it is in North Carolina for University students).

You could finish your actual student teaching in 2 weeks ie a few lessons taught in between the observations and final week of student teaching (1 class for a week is about 5 hours)

A lot less of a burden and much quicker / less work than the conventional way.

I am in the process of getting approved and assigned to a school and teacher for the Teacher Ready program myself.