Reflections on Student Teaching

It is hard to believe, but today would have been the last day of my student teaching semester. Of course, the semester was cut short and I was unable to finish in a traditional way because of the Corona Virus. There were a few things that I learned from the experience that goes beyond the classroom.

The first thing that I learned is something that I already know but had it confirmed through working with my kids. Each kid that we teach and coach is completely unique. They come from different backgrounds. Some have advantages, while others have disadvantages. We have to be sensitive and understand that. We should stay away from a blanketed method when it comes to teaching our kids. Rather we should look to differentiate our lessons both in the classroom and on the field to best fit our students. Helping the majority of students through one approach is not the goal. The goal is to help all of our students and athletes learn, even if it means offering our instruction in multiple ways.

The second thing that I learned is that motivation is a hard beast to tame. The teacher I was co-teaching with shared her thoughts on motivation with me. She told me that motivation does not exist, we can do all these things to try to make a lesson interesting, but someone is still going to hate it. While I agree with her to a point, I think motivation does exist and is important to the kids we teach and coach. Motivation is tricky, and it will not always work. For example, I asked the students that I taught what they would like to write about and in what style. This was their assignment, hand-selected by them, and still, some of them complained. One student even threw the paper at me and told me they refused to do it. You are never going to be able to able to please everyone. Someone, whether it is a student, teacher, fellow coach, or an administrator, somebody is not going to like what you do. The best thing to do is to differentiate, implement UDL, and stand by your lesson design. Teaching and coaching are dynamic, which makes it fun, things will never be the same day to day. You MUST be flexible and be at the top of your game to roll with the punches.

One of the biggest things I learned during my short student teaching semester is the importance of collaboration. The school is a community of teachers who all (hopefully) are interested in the success of their students. Collaborating with those other teachers, even if it is just asking questions, can help you be more ready to help your students. Just like I mentioned that all students come from different backgrounds, every teacher in the school comes from a different background. Working with them can help you become a well-rounded teacher. There is a ton of overlap between subjects, it could be fun to teach a cross-curriculum lesson. Teaching how to do research and citations along with helping kids get ready for the social studies fair can help provide a seamless education for the kids. The same concept can apply for coaching. The game of football is not new, there are millions of coaches all over the world. By reaching out and collaborating with them, we help to build our own understanding. The single-wing coach can teach the spread coach new things and the spread coach can teach the single-wing coach new things. There is value in information, there's no point in drawing these imaginary lines in the sand that separate different styles of coaching. There is also value in having joint practices. At smaller schools, it is really hard to get good on good. By practicing with other schools you get to see how your best matches up against another team's top guys. Collaboration is key when building your own understanding and the skills of your kids.

I thnk it is safe to say that I did not expect my last semester of college to finish the way that it did. Receiving my diploma in the mail sometime in the middle of July is not ideal, but it is what it is. What I think is important right now is to not squander the time that we have right now, that why I write this blog when I can. The majority of us now have a ton of time to reflect, to learn, and to collaborate, I want to try to make sure I am not wasting that time!