Psyching Out and Psyching Up

"And if you're scared of the future tonight,
We'll just take it each hour one at a time."

-"Boomboxes and Dictionaries" by The Gaslight Anthem

In six hours, I'll be waking up for my first day of student teaching, and I've got a cold.

Or, rather, this cold has me. I've been rattlin' the chains of this beast for the last two weeks, every day hoping that it would relent in time for my term of office...er, classroom. That's not going to happen, so I'm planning on waking up a bit early to load up on throat spray, cough drops, vitamins, twelve gallons of water, and a catheter. Well, maybe I should reconsider those last two.

I'm nervous, but in a good way. It's a performance-enhancing nervousness, I think. It reminds me of when I was getting ready to take the Praxis II tests. My family was wishing me luck, and I mentioned how on-edge I was feeling. My mom looked me in the eye and said, "When have you ever met a test you couldn't annihilate?" I kept repeating that to myself, all the way through the tests (which I did, indeed, annihilate). That's what I need to keep telling myself, now.

I've done a month-long internship in a 6th grade class, a month-long internship in a 7th grade class, a week-long methods experience in a 5th grade class, and a solid month of methods-teaching in a seventh grade class. And now, I'll ask myself:

"Self, when have you ever stood in front of a class whose socks you could not, in essence, rock? Relaaaaax."

For those of you who are interested (que the crickets), here's a Day Zero wrap-up of all the things I've done prior to actually student teaching:

1.) Driven to the school a few times.

This was an important one, because the school is over an hour away and is across state lines, in an area I've never been near, before. I still don't have the directions down, but I know that with the help of my pal, Maggie (Yes, I named my GPS device), I can find my way throught the thirty miles of cornfields and five miles of confusing downtown streets that rest between me and my destination.

2.) Met with my cooperating teachers and my college advisor.

We had a meeting in which the advisor laid out all of the things for which both I and my two cooperating teachers will be responsible. It's a lot of work. In addition to all the standard student teaching stuff that I was expecting, I'll be conducting a quantified research study to prove to the state that my presence led to student achievement. The highlight of this meeting would probably be when my cooperating teacher for science said something to my advisor along the lines of "As long as he's willing to get a little crazy, he'll do fine." My advisor (who has observed and graded my performances at other placements) grinned, looked over at me, and sort of shook his head, saying "Well, you don't have to worry, there."

3.) Met with my first cooperating teacher in her classroom.

At the aforementioned meeting, my cooperating teacher for Language Arts (I'm just going to call her Ms. English, since the titles are getting unruly) invited me to visit her classroom during the week. I was able to get a look at her classroom, meet some of the students, and get a feel for the sort of atmosphere she maintains. I asked if she had any copies of her seating charts or class rosters, so I could start learning students' names. She did me one better, and gave me a sheet of not only their names, but their school pictures. She then gave me a copy of her state's standards book for language arts, and let me look through her giant book of activities, so that I could see what she was planning on covering, next. Or, rather, what she's planning on having me cover, next. For any future student teachers who are reading: ask if you can do something like this! This was a huge help. It took the mystery off of the whole thing, and gave me an idea of what I'm getting into.

Well, ladies and gents, I've got to get going, because I've got some serious sleeping to do. As always, keep the sails stretched, pavement pirates.

-The Educational Man of Mystery