(1) Day of Summer

"The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery" - Mark van Doren

I remember as a student, up through college even, the feeling of the last day of summer. There would be nothing more thrilling, yet draining, than the last day of so-called freedom. Everything from finding out where my classes were and who was in them to the first homework assignment made me excited- I loved school. It was also sad, though, to think that in just one day I'd start the routine of waking up before the sun, going to be early, and in between the two completing assignments and deciding if I had time to go out.

This is happening again. Right now. Tomorrow I start my first day of student teaching and I feel the thrill and excitement, but also the sorrow of summer ending. This time around, however, it's not because I don't want to wake up early and I don't want to have to sleep before dawn; instead this last day of summer I feel a sort of anxiety unknown to me before. I am excited, but also terrified. After four years learning to teach, I am going to begin putting what I've learned to practice and seeing if teaching is right for me, or more accurately, if I am right for it.

My actual classes don't being tomorrow. I start with Professional Development days, as well as a seminar at my university, but school really does start the night before you go in for the first time. I'm definitely still a student, and I don't mind learning as I go.

I suppose I should include some general ideas about where I am and what I am doing this semester as I embark on the end of my university education and into my future career. I'm a female in the midwest, I'm twenty-two, and I will be student teaching in a seventh grade language arts classroom where, so far, we have decided that this semester will be focusing on mysteries and memoirs. The university I attend only requires a semester of student teaching, as opposed to a full year that other programs sometimes require, and it's the last thing I have to do before I walk in my cap and gown.

I am terrified. And thrilled.