Student Teaching

As I finish up my first semester in the education program, and realizing many of my collegues are student teaching in the fall, has made me think about my student teaching. Of course I am not doing mine until Spring of 2011. But non the less I'll get there! The traditional student goes back home and teaches in a district close to them. At first, I was so excited to go back home to finish off my student teaching, but the more I think about it, I feel like there is another better opportunity awaiting me. Another option for us student teachers is to go abroad! With my love of traveling, experiences new people, places and cultures, I feel like this is my best fit option. Traveling while in college can be an experience of a life time as well as more financially do able.

My good friend Thomas has just come back home after a semester in Africa and even though I have not heard his stories yet, but I know I will, just looking through his pictures has made me jealous! I have always wanted to study abroad and I think I just need to plunge in and like Nike says "just do it". I would be going to Germany as our program sends their students to Japan or Germany. I want to go to Germany because I have always wanted to go to Europe and there are so many countries there I want to visit. I would force myself to go to Sweden, which won't take much forcing, cause I've always wanted to go there. I want to see my ancestor's farm, the one that is named after Grandpa's name. Of course it's not named after Grandpa, but he got his name from teh ancestor's who lived at the farm long ago. I have seen pictures of Sweden and our farm, and I get excited just thinking of the possibility of seeing it for myself. My Swedish heritage is important to me and so what better time to learn more about it while in college doing my student teaching in Germany! While in Europe, I want to visit other countries as well. This will mean going out by myself and just seeing what I can see and learning what I can learn about their history and culture. This experience will force me to grow as a learner as well as a person.

In Germany, I will be living on a U.S. military base teaching American students who are stationed over there. So I won't be livining in a random town with a random family. I will be safe being protected by our men in uniform. Teaching over there will give me a new teaching experience as well. I feel like I have a good sense of how education is run over here in the U.S. So I want to get out and experience how we run our schools for our children who are stationed with families overseas. I also want to visit other schools in Europe and see how they run their schools. I believe that this will help me become a better teacher with the understanding that there is more than one way to teach. And even though it's different it can still be effective.

Financially, I pay WSU tuition and just need money for living over there and the airfare. It'll be about a semester long, so expensive, but well worth it. This experience will also help me grow as an individual as I will be in a foriegn place without family for six months! Anyways, just some recent thoughts, I still have to talk to my family about the possibilities. It's just been on my mind this week, so I thought I'd put my thoughts into words.