Submitted by Christy Bock, Knoxville, Tennessee

Idea posted April 12, 2002

When I was student teaching at the elementary level, it was great. For the first few weeks, all I did was observe and help. Then, my mentor gave me one class of my own. Every week she added another class. (We interned for 1/2 a year at each level.) We stopped when I had half the classes in each grade level.

This was GREAT, because I could still observe her for 1/2 of the time, but I had classes of my own to experiment with. She stayed in the room at first, just to help out or jump in if there was trouble, but by the end of my time with her, she felt free to leave the room.

She also made me fill out all the paperwork that she did. She would fill out a "real" copy, but then make me fill out a dummy copy. This was sooooooo helpful! When I became a teacher, I knew how to fill out field trip forms, etc.