Student teaching provides students with a hands-on opportunity to get a taste of teaching before they begin their career as an educator and creates opportunities for individuals to work not only with the students in the school, but the staff as well. Educators need to know how to act around students, but a student teacher must also learn how to act around fellow teachers, support staff, administrators, and parents.
Here I will reflected on ideal interpersonal relationships within the school, problems that they hope would not develop, and strategies for solving problems. The importance of maintaining positive relationships at school needs to be in the mind of every student teacher. Things may not always go smoothly, yet a professional should have some ideas on how to handle tricky situations.
Contrary to popular notions, teacher licensing in public schools does not insure teacher quality. A license also does not even insure that a public-school teacher knows much about the subject she teaches. In fact, in our upside-down public-school system, licensing often leads to ill-trained and mediocre teachers instructing our children. As we will see, it turns out that teacher licensing is a protection racket.
The notion that only state-approved, licensed teachers can guarantee children a good education is proven wrong by history and common sense. In ancient Athens, the birthplace of logic, science, philosophy, and Western civilization, city authorities did not require teachers to be licensed. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle did not have to get a teaching license from Athenian bureaucrats to open up their Academies. A teacher’s success came only from his competence, reputation, and popularity. Students and their parents paid a teacher only if they thought he was worth the money. Competition and an education free market produced great teachers in ancient Greece.
So are you planning to be a teacher mentor? Here’s a brief overview on what awaits you in this challenging role.
What is a Teacher Mentor? A teacher mentor, or teacher coach, helps mentor new teachers by giving ongoing guidance on areas of lesson planning, classroom management and classroom organization. Usually, teacher mentors are teachers themselves and have undergone similar challenges that first year teachers know well.
At teacher education programs at colleges and universities, there are mentoring programs for new teachers such as a student teacher mentor program. There are also teachers at school who mentor student teachers, and new teachers as well. Mentoring first year teachers is not an easy job, and it takes a special kind of teacher mentor to fill in the shoes.