Get ready for it
I met my cooperating teacher this morning for Phase 1 student teaching. Her name is Meg and it's her 6th year teaching. She is awesome. I never luck out with these kinds of things. I was fully prepared to get someone who was just going through the motions, but she is incredibly enthusiastic despite being incredibly overworked. Her schedule is actually illegal, I am pretty sure. Before we even met she asked me to reflect a little bit on what my goals were and she is happy to give me a lot of responsibility in the class room so I know this is going to be a really valuable experience. The only snag is that she is mostly a 6th grade teacher and I am supposed to be doing my practicum with middle schoolers (which according to NYS is 7-9th grade despite every middle I've ever been to being 6th-8th grade). Her 6th grade curriculum sounds fantastic, however, probably because it isn't constrained by a Regents prep. She created it entirely herself and she says it is everything she ever wanted to teach rolled into one course. Her description of the curriculum: "it's all about social justice, racism and the gay agenda. Yeah, I know I can't say that, but it is."