Everyone who is student teaching now knows the struggle: you're finally here, in a classroom, ready to apply everything you've been learning about for four years. But before you can take over that class and live out your dream of being a teacher, you have to get through edTPA, the mother of all teacher performance assessments and one of the last things standing between you and your certification as a teacher.

1. Determination

It can’t possibly be that bad. These prompts take up most of the space anyway. All I’ve gotta do is restate the questions and then it’s just a little more detail than you need for a normal lesson plan. What was everyone worried about? Crazy crazers, I got this.

2. Thoroughly Overwhelmed

Wait, I have to do this and still take on more subjects? But I want to focus on this! When do they expect me to sleep? What if this isn’t what they want?! Maybe I should just become a tutor...then I don't need edTPA to be certified, right? I would be good at that.

*It is at this point that you begin to stare at your computer screen and sit there for two hours with no work to show for all that wasted time.

3. Denial and Procrastination

I’ve got instructional sequences done, there’s no rush. I’ve gotten pretty good at this stand up and teach thing. I mean, if I can’t even teach this lesson without hours of work, I shouldn’t be going into this profession anyway!

4. Resolve

You’re really not that behind but you know people who finished their lesson plans and Task 1 like forever ago and they’re already working on Task 2 and you’re sure that must mean that you’re doomed if you don’t buckle down and crank out some killer commentaries. As a result, you spend a day being hugely productive and surviving off of lukewarm coffee and snacks from the school café.

5. Last Minute Panic

It’s about time to submit but you can’t do that until it’s absolutely 100% perfect so you scramble to find every infinitesimally small detail that could possibly be wrong. Eventually you decide your edits are only making matters worse. Just hit submit. And start breathing again.

6. Prayer and Eager Anticipation

Once those commentaries are submitted, there’s not much else you can do but pray that all those hours spent studying, lesson planning, and absorbing your professors’ knowledge have paid off. It’s out of your hands, but it’s not worth biting your nails over because you know that you’ve done everything you can to show the evaluators that you know what you’re doing and are ready to teach.

I’m assuming the last stage is pride and accomplishment, but I’ll let ya know when I get there…