Have you ever had a student teacher in your class?

A student teacher is a college student who is looking for experience in the field of teaching and acts as a intern for a teacher in the field that they are studying, for example language arts or social studies. Miss Flowers was a student teacher at Mayfield Middle School last yearl and was hired by Millridge Elementary School. She had taught on the seventh grade Innovator team and on the eighth grade team Ignite in the 2016-17 school year.

Miss Flowers is a graduate of Ohio University and has a bachelor’s degree in Speech Therapy and a master’s degree from John Carroll in Middle School Education.

Miss Flowers describes one of her core values as follows: “Keep the students first. Even sometimes they are having a bad day.” She does not think of students as names on a paper but as real people with feelings. She said she learned this from being the student teacher with Mrs. Bartram.

While under the guidance of Mrs. Bartram, she had learned and studied how to teach Language Arts. The subject “can bring you in so many directions,” said Miss Flowers.

According to Miss Flowers, Mayfield City Schools is a place where every student counts, where every teacher counts; that’s why Miss Flowers chose Millridge–because she loved student teaching here.

Many teachers’ favorite moments are when students start caring and ask for help, when they receive thank you letters from former students, and of course, summer.  But unlike other teachers, Miss Flowers’s favorite moment teaching was her very first day and meeting the new kids because she meets so many new and interesting people.

What are the requirements for becoming a student teacher? In the state of Ohio, each student studying education must have ten weeks under their belts of in-classroom interning or practice and 12 semester credit hours of student teaching experience (compared to Alaska with no required time in the classroom).

Miss Flowers says that student teaching was difficult.  She says the biggest challenge was “trying to teach during the day and go to class the night.”  All student teachers have to face this struggle but Miss Flowers feels it was all worth it. She is enjoying her new position at Millridge. Miss Flowers, soon to be Mrs. Suglade, now teaches social studies, language arts, and math and is grateful for her student teaching experience.