Student teaching

I have referenced my student teaching a time or two on this blog and am now putting down some more thoughts. Since I was a horticulture production minor and the lone entry in this category, I had to select a school to go to for student teaching that offered horticulture classes. In the fall, no one teaches horticulture or at least practices it. I got stuck because when the "first come first serve" applications became available, I was in brazil. Some of the other ag ed majors picked the schools that offered horticulture production ahead of me, and didn't want the horticulture production program. At any rate, by the time I had turned in my application, all the schools I could have or should have gone to were occupied. Our programs main teacher had announced or threatened that if they didn't find a school for me to go to, I was going to be job shadowing her the next quarter instead of student teaching. They eventually found a school and program that was willing to take me on at Logan Elm High school. One of my teachers was on the school board there and had some nearby houses and rental property in Circleville that he could rent to me while I was student teaching. I was able to live across from the krogers, and had a short drive there. I did get internet service in there, but did not have any cable tv.

The actual classes were a bit of a change of pace from what I had been acclimated to. The school was on block scheduling, and it was a two teacher program. I had never been involved with either. I also had only freshman classes. I only had freshman, which meant that I only had to prepare one class worth of work everyday. I was able to finesse the lesson by the fourth time I presented it. I also had to get up and be active. The first couple of days I had to listen to susan, my mentor teacher person, I couldn't stay awake. I was way more worried about getting chewed out for falling asleep than being in front of a class room full of 14 year olds. I didn't care what I was doing or saying, I was getting up there and going and trying. I simply could not sit around and listen to susan talk all day.

I also had a problem with some of the assignments we were expected to do while student teaching. I was supposed to keep a daily journal, but didn't turn in a singe page or have any indication of a journal. I had to take days away from the classroom to visit a first or second year hire ag teacher, a day off to visit another student teacher from the cohort in their class. I didn't like leaving the classroom, I felt that I should be in there everytime students are. We had to make up daily, detailed lesson plans that were expected to be turned in for evaluation. My college professor person came in once or twice to review me also.

I had to take three days off to go to the national FFA convention and make sub plans. I got three days off to go to the pumpkin festival, which was in walking distance from my place. I also was able to experience some fog delays, and weekly field trips. But I still didn't like the time away from the classroom. The pumpkin festival was really pretty fun. I walked around and gorged myself on food, then went back to my place and drank myself drunk. Being 22 was fun. Some of the secretary's thought I looked too young to be 22, but at that point, I barely had to shave every other day and was still under 190 after working construction all summer.

The funniest thing that happened was in columbus. One weekend, I went up to c-vegas for an OSU game and predictably got drunk and passed out on a recliner at NASAmatt's and scatterbrain's house. About 4 am, I heard a knocking on the front door and here is a summation of ensuing conversation.

Me- hello?
Pizza- yeah I got a pizza for mark
Me-there is no mark here
pizza-is the *** northwood?
me-no this is *** main street circleville
pizza-this is not columbus?
me-no, I am living in circleville

At some point, I realized that I was in columbus and not in circleville that night. I kept up the act anyways and got the guy to leave. I went back to sleep and left the next morning. I did tell vegasbob about what happened, and he relayed it to scatterbrain. The story is practically legendary among my pals now, and rightly so. I drank so much I forgot I was in columbus and kept scatterbrain from paying for a pizza when he was comatose in his bed.

I also had my first experience with a high school football program. I went to only one home game. When I wanted to leave after the game, there was a huge crowd in the parking lot and I got aggravated about going to a game when I couldn't leave the parking lot in a reasonable amount of time. They did have a good team that year, and made the playoffs. The lost the first and only game of the playoffs, but I rode along with my college professor that was a hometown person for logan elm.

At any rate, I ended up with a b grade overall. For all I knew, everyone else received A grades. I was happy to realize that I didn't like teaching of agriculture and preferred talking about science. I didn't tell any of my advisors that information though.