A Final Look at the Semester

It is impossible to believe that the end of the semester is just around the corner. I can’t tell if it feels like these past three months feel like they have gone too fast or too slow, but I do know that they have been a rollercoaster of emotions and work and stress and great times. It is even harder to believe that I have completed my first edTPA… and survived. I cannot put into words how much I have learned over the course of this semester from my practicum experience and from my Art Education class. The joys and struggles of teaching, I now know with certainty, can only be experienced through first-hand participation in a classroom. I have to say, as my first time in the high school art classroom as a teacher, the experience was completely new to me and, admittedly, constantly uncomfortable. I do know, however, that this discomfort allowed me to learn and grow as a teacher in a way that cannot be matched. The entire experience—from planning the lesson to instructing and demonstrating to assisting the students during work time, and finally, to assessing the work—all of it was so incredibly worth the stress and sleepless nights. I have come to realize how truly rewarding teaching is.

One of the biggest pieces of my great experience was working with Ms. G. Even though I only worked with her for a few short months, I am sure that this woman’s passion for teaching will continue to be one of my biggest inspirations for years to come. Ms. G truly understood the importance of art to students, and I could tell that her students understood its importance in their own lives. She constantly pushed and challenged the students, and was patient with them even when they fought back or complained because she understood that they were working through struggles, and she was always there to support them. When they finally did succeed, which each of them eventually did, she gave them the praise that they deserved for their hard work. I’ve noted Ms. G’s approach to teaching and supporting her students and I will be certain to follow her ways when I have my own classroom.

Not only was Ms. G helpful to her students, she was helpful in instructing me as a future teacher as well. She answered all of my questions in great detail, which gave me wonderful information to reference for the future. She also gave me incredibly thorough feedback after my teaching of the lesson, and her notes affected me on each subsequent day of teaching—I could see myself getting better and better over the course of only a few days. Her feedback will also be highly beneficial to reference when I am teaching in the future.

Overall, I would not trade my practicum experience for the world. There are certainly some things that I would do differently—quite a few, in fact—but the mistakes that I made and the struggles I endured were a necessary part of my learning process. It is such a relief to know that I can only improve from here. I will take all of the notes and criticisms that I have received and apply them to future lessons to allow myself to become the best teacher I can be. Now that I have worked through the uneasiness and anxiety of teaching in a real classroom for the first time, I know that I can do it again and again for the rest of my life.