Final Reflective Essay:

Final Reflection Essay:

            As my student teaching experience for art education comes to an end, I find myself absolutely stunned. I’m stunned at the fact that I only have a week left, I’m stunned at the fact that it went by so quickly, and I’m especially stunned at how much of an impact each of the students I have been working with for the past twelve weeks has ended up having on me. I knew that student teaching would be difficult, it’s something that is told to us continually from when we are thinking about becoming a teacher, to applying to the education program and finally to actually beginning our student teaching experience, but I feel like something that isn’t mentioned near as much is how rewarding the student teaching process can be. Obviously, every experience is different, and some aren’t lucky enough to have a great experience or they even end their experience of student teaching by coming to the realization that teaching really isn’t for them, but for me that’s simply not the case. This has been one of the most, if not the most, rewarding and enlightening experiences I have had while attending the University of Montana, and it has only solidified the fact that I know I am on the right path in life in becoming an educator.

            I took a big chance in student teaching in a town that I am not from, a town that I have only had ties to for a short amount of time, a town where I was originally only known by a handful of people, but this town, this district, these teachers, these students, have all changed my life for the better, so much that I am very excited to see what my special education student teaching experience will be like, and I hope it is half as amazing as this art student teaching experience has been.

            Throughout this experience, I feel that I have grown significantly as an educator, I have addressed areas of strength and weakness, areas that I have identified personally and areas that my cooperating teacher identified, I learned how to not only understand constructive criticism, but also how to apply that criticism into this experience to help better myself as a person but also as an educator. I have learned that my students deserve the very best version of myself whether I am a student teacher or their official teacher and that by providing them with the best version of myself I am helping aide in their success within the classroom as well. With this in mind, I have also seen the significance a teacher has on a student’s life, I knew what this was like as a student because I have had so many significant teachers in my life but there will always be those select few who I know fought for me to be the best student I could be, they not only encouraged me to work hard and do my best in school, but I felt a sense of comfort and respect from them, a sense of importance, and that is something I wanted to implement as an educator as well.

            I wanted to ensure that I was maintaining an authoritative relationship with my students but I also wanted to maintain a positive relationship as well, and although there were moments of difficulty, or times where I did have to address some very unsettling behaviors within the classroom, they were situations that I hadn’t encountered till now, and I truly learned from them. I can see how when being a teacher, there are many instances where it almost feels like you are a parent to these students based off of how you need to address situations, or even answer questions. But, this is something to be expected due to the fact that we do spend such a dramatic amount of time with these students during the day, teachers play such a significant role in a student’s life, that I don’t know that I even had an idea of what this meant until I began this experience. As a student teacher, you know that sometimes it isn’t all too common for you to maybe not feel as significant with the students especially in a secondary classroom setting whether this is because the students view us as being close in age to them, we look too young to be a teacher, or maybe the significance of the student teacher wasn’t as apparent in the classroom as the main teacher’s presence was, this is something that we do anticipate. I even remember during my school days having several student teachers, but if anything they felt more like observers who occasionally taught, and not a true teacher in a sense, and I honestly can say that I do not believe that that was the case with me.

            I wanted to ensure that the students not only knew me but felt comfortable with me due to the fact that I would be fully taking over their classes at some point, and I wanted to make sure that that was a successful transition for them. To help aid in making myself known with my students and in that transition into my takeover, I also wanted to make myself prominent in participating in the professional community whether that meant eating lunch with fellow teachers in the teachers’ lounge, or being very active in homecoming activities with my students as well, I wanted them to see that I wasn’t just there for their particular class, but that I was there as a true teacher and there for their success just as much as my own.

To help in their success, especially with that fact that every student learns differently and that especially in an art classroom that each student’s pace on completing an assignment varies from the next, I wanted to make sure that they had adequate time outside of class to complete their projects especially when there was no more in class time allowed for an assignment to be completed. Each student is defferent from the next, and some students are so active in their school that the only time they could make available to coming in to work on a project outside of their regular class time was at 7:30 in the morning, and if that was the case, I wanted them to know that that could work and I would help them with that success. For such instances, I made myself available prior to the beginning of the school day for students who needed that extra time to complete assignments or make up a test, I also made myself available during lunch and after school for these sort of instances as well, and I could tell that this is something that the students did appreciate with me. I also wanted to make sure that if I set up specific expectations for my students that I set up my own expectations for myself as well, and followed just as I would have expected my students to follow theirs.

As an educator I do believe that it is important to keep our word with our students, because if we lay out certain expectations for them but can’t hold up our own end of the expectations they have on us, what business do we have in expecting them to do what we expect of them. I had teachers like that in the past who would say one thing and do something else, and I knew I didn’t want to be that teacher because I lost respect for those teachers on a certain level as their student, and I knew that I never wanted my future students to feel that way about me. I even did have some of my students comment to me that the fact that I took extra steps with them meant a lot, and this is something that truly brought joy to me because I did know that this was something that was significant to them enough that they wanted to tell me that.

Although these positive behaviors were wonderful to work with and my overall experience was amazing at Havre High, I won’t lie and say that it was absolutely perfect because there were times I wanted to breakdown and cry, or times where student behavior became overwhelming, and I didn’t know exactly how to handle certain situations, but something that was significant for me during these times was my cooperating teacher, she helped me in handling and addressing certain situations and asked me my take on certain things as well. She made me feel incredibly welcomed into her classroom from day one, but she especially made me feel like a teacher in these instances, and I realized I am still very much a student, because that’s the thing about being a teacher, that we are continually learning whether that is we are learning more about subject matter, standards, objectives, or learning about students and ourselves, we are continually learning and are considered to be forever students.

I now understand why student teaching is so incredibly significant to a future teacher’s future as an educator, because, I feel I have learned so much more than I ever expected to during this experience, that I don’t know it can truly be measured. But, the most significant thing I have learned in this experience is actually how important the subject of art is in our schools, and for our students. I know that not every student is going to absolutely love taking an art class, but for some this is their escape or even their happiest place to be, and because of it being therapeutic in that sense, students who may not think art is their thing or may think they just aren’t good enough at may end up having a change of hard just because of one assignment or even just one teacher. I’ve learned that I want to be that teacher for my future students, not only do I want them to feel safe and comfortable in my own classroom one day but I want them to enjoy the creative process and to enjoy the assignment itself. I want them to come to my classroom excited to get out their current project, because I have seen a child’s face light up when they get to work on a project that they are actually enjoying, and I have seen how much that does change their perspective of the class as a whole, or even just by making a student feel significant and important in your own classroom that that can change their whole outlook on school. I want to have a class like that one day, and I plan on making sure that I do.

To measure this experience as a whole is impossible to do because it has been not only enjoyable for me but also so significant for me as well, I can’t simply write about it and call it good, but what I can do is take all that I have learned from my students, my cooperating teacher, my supervisor, and from all the individuals that have led up to this moment for me and apply my knowledge to my future students, and give them the best version of myself as I can because my students, current and future will always deserve that because they deserve to know that their significance is important. This experience has been so humbling and impactful for me that I know that as an educator I can make it, although it will be both difficult and wonderful as the years go on in my time as a teacher, I will be able to look back and say that my student teaching in a town that I didn’t really know and with people I had never met turned into an experience of a lifetime, and that I only discovered how excited I am to one day be an educator myself.

I am so thankful for the experience I have had at Havre High School, and I cannot wait to see what else will be in store for me in the weeks to come as I transition into my Special Education Student Teaching Experience at Havre Middle School, but I know if it is half as good as the experience I had for art, then it is bound to be nothing short of wonderful. Thank you Havre High, in the twelve weeks that I have walked your halls, you truly have ended up changing my life.