Student Teaching, I'm discovering my identity

Student teacher Chelsea Clark coaches Girard Middle School students Katie Nepote and Megan Bennett during a recent writing assignment. Clark and other PSU student teachers say they benefit from the classroom experience and the mentoring of experienced cooperating teachers.

Students and student teachers learn in area classrooms

For Pittsburg State University student teachers, the time they spend in the classroom under the watchful eye of an experienced teacher is like gold. It is the time that theory meets reality and when they often discover that teaching is harder and more rewarding than they expected.

Chelsea Clark is doing her student teaching with PSU alumna and 24-year veteran Jan Geier at Girard Middle School. Geier teaches 7th and 8th grade English. She said the class focuses on writing and grammar.

Clark said she feels fortunate to have been placed with Geier, who has had several student teachers over the years.

“I’m learning from a master teacher. She has the best classroom management skills. Learning how to be very firm but also have a personality has been great,” said Clark who added that she believed classroom management to be the most common concern for new teachers.

“I am structured,” Geier said. “Chelsea seems to be as well. She and I make a great team.”

“Quite a few times, students seem reluctant to teach middle school,” Geier said, “although more seem to be asking for middle school recently.”

For Clark, an Oklahoma City native who came to PSU to play softball, pre-lab experiences in both high school and middle school classrooms made the decision to focus on middle school an easy one.

“I just love this age group,” Clark said. “They are old enough to understand higher concepts, yet they are still able to have fun and be a little goofy.”

Clark said her experience in Geier’s classroom is helping her have a more open mind about learning and teaching techniques. For example, Clark said, she has learned some methods in her university classes that are different from those Geier relies upon, “but the way she does things works, too.”

Clark said she is confident that when she takes over her own middle school classroom in the Washburn Rural school district this fall, she’ll be ready. Clark expects to put into practice some of the skills she is learning in Jan Geier’s classroom this spring. Some strategies will be her own, she said. Student teaching is helping her prepare for that day.

As she watches Clark give instructions to students during a writing assignment, Geier seems confident that the identity Clark is shaping will be just what students are going to need.

Rozanne Sparks, director of teacher education in PSU’s College of Education, said cooperating teachers play a central role in the preparation of the 215-235 student teachers the university has each year.

“When teacher education graduates are asked to identify the one most helpful part of their program,” Sparks said, “working closely with the cooperating teacher is one of the most frequent responses given.”

Sparks said student teachers and cooperating teachers frequently form a friendship that lasts long after the students graduate and go on to teach in their own classrooms.

“It is not at all unusual for teacher candidates and their cooperating teachers to develop a bond during that last semester,” Sparks said. “Most generally that becomes a life-long professional relationship.”

For more on PSU’s College of Education and its teacher education program, call 620-235-4517 or visit the College of Education Web site at http://www.pittstate.edu/edsc/.