Every education major dreams of-- or has nightmares about-- their professional semester of student teaching. After 120 hours of observations and several college courses the time finally comes and we are sent on our way to our first day at a new school. Student teaching is a wild ride that you can only understand by experiencing it for yourself, and you often find yourself saying and doing things your friends in other programs just don’t understand. You often find yourself thinking

“You know you’re a student teacher when…”

Here are some of those moments:

You know you’re a student teacher when you start shopping for “teacher clothes” instead of club clothes.

You know you’re a student teacher when going out later than 10:00pm seems like a crazy night.

You know you’re a student teacher when you’re tracing and cutting out pieces to a project while your friends are writing papers.

You know you’re a student teacher when everything you do seems like a “teachable moment.”

You know you’re a student teacher when your Teachers Pay Teachers searches become more frequent than your Facebook use.

You know you’re a student teacher when you could identify an objective and blooms level for any possible activity on the spot.

You know you’re a student teacher when “you’ll never guess what my student said/did today” is always the first thing out of your mouth.

You know you’re a student teacher when your friends get annoyed by your “teacher voice”, which at this point is second nature.

And you know that when this semester is over, you’ll be ready to get out there and find a classroom of your own!