Marvelous Life of Michaela

2020 has been the craziest year of my life and it's only getting started. Not only am I faced with the challenge of finding a cooperating center to complete my student teacher experience next year, but I am now tackling it all from behind a screen. Even though every one is sick of the word "coronavirus," it is a word that we now evolve our entire lives around. Switching to online all the time has been a struggle for most, and I am no exception. My professors have been great and understanding, as they are in the same boat as the students are in, but I still feel the pressure to learn and complete tasks that are more difficult to understand through Zoom. Another area that I am struggling with is finding that perfect cooperating center. While I am so grateful for Zoom and being able to connect with cooperating teachers online, I am still upset that I can't get the full experience of being at the program in person and building a face-to-face connection. When I get up...

In my last blog, I talked about my hunt for the perfect cooperating center and what I was looking for for my future student teaching experience. Trying to narrow down what schools I wanted to visit to potentially student teach at next spring was a very stressful idea for me. I was so nervous that I would look for schools that seemed good on paper, but did not live up to my expectations during my visit. I think it is safe to say that my worries were diminished as I visited three cooperating centers: Big Spring High School, Garden Spot High School, and Tyrone Area High School. Each school was unique and had so much to offer. Tyrone Area High School had classes that were heavy in agricutlural sciences, and when I was there the students were doing a really cool project to help them learn animal anatomy! Garden Spot High School offered food and plant sciences to their students, as well as a general agricultural class. During my visit, I got to tour their HUGE greenhouse and watch their FF...