Student teaching is intentionally deceptive and does NOT accurately depict what teaching is. If it were accurate then we wouldn't have this situation of 50% of new teachers quitting by their third year.

I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t student teach, I was alt cert, but when I had student teachers they either did or shadowed my whole job and were there there whole day for those kinds of duties. They went to all the meetings etc.

One big difference is though that I was tenured and a union rep so admin did not fuck with me but I always personally explained that’s not how first year is.

What they didn’t do much of: designing and developing curriculum (even when I gave them the chance or they had to for assignments, most lacked that skill and wanted lessons or resources to use; I always wrote a full curriculum from scratch, never used anything scripted) and grading (they could mark but grading things like writing with comments/feedback they usually lacked the capacity for) but both of those are core to teaching IMO

What was made easier: classroom management isn’t the same because the systems are set up by me and the kids know I’m not going to let them get away with too much at the end of the day; ST wasn’t really “alone” (This was irrelevant to a degree most of the time I had an ST because classroom management wasn’t an issue in the kids I had though)

What was “false”: by the time I had most of my student teachers, I was teaching in a nice high school and all kids who were college bound. I took STs in my old title 1 MS too but very few wanted to come and most quit before finishing. Many quit before finishing district wide or never taught after though. Lots of people realize d ST sucked too.

/r/TeachersInTransition Thread