I’m not gonna dive into the deeper meat of this topic, cause I had a REALLY long message typed out, but I realized it sounded hateful, and that’s generally not me. I’m more of a common ground finder, because we need good educators in this world, even if we differ on how some things should be handled I don’t want to discourage you in any way.( and maybe even if you’d want to take my teaching certificate away, haha)

However, be careful speaking so confidently on education matters if you are still in college. It’s a whole different world on this side of things and you find that college didn’t prepare you much at all. You learn more in your student teaching than all four previous years of classes. You also find that the “theories” you learn are all well and good, but literally no two classes are the same and in practice you have to learn how to handle each one of your classes differently almost every year. Something works for first hour, but not for second.etc.

I will just leave my thoughts as this: Relationships are everything. Having a good relationship with a kid doesn’t mean being all coddly all the time though. Kids need to be corrected, sometimes it’s harsh, but they can’t question whether or not you care about them at the end of the day( I get the whole “You’re literally our favorite/nicest teacher, and our scariest teacher at the same time” all the time.). I will cede that it’s a little different with the real youngins compared to upper middle where I’m at though, which is why you’ll never catch me doing elementary and why I think you ElEd lot are saints.