Student teaching...and coaching

I am about 6 weeks into my secondary education internship and having fun. I am lucky to have been assigned to the school I went to and graduated from 22 years ago, Danville High School. On top of that, I am blessed to have been attached to Coach Paul Wilson as my teaching mentor. I have started teaching all classes, thus in full control of what those adolescent minds soak in when it comes to American Government and Modern U.S. History. My first observation by my Athens State supervisor will be this Monday, so I am a bit nervous about that, but confident all will go well.

One thing I was told by my secondary education advisor and supervisor was to make myself available to coach if I was capable as that would help pad my resume when I go apply for teaching jobs. So, I did as they suggested and let the principal, who my JV football and baseball coach when I went to school at Danville, know I was willing to help coach anything if anybody needed it. The baseball coach asked me if I was willing to help, and of course I gave him an affirmative.

Most of you know of the physical issues I have went through the past few years and still have today. So, student teaching was going to be a good test of where I stood with these issues and if I was actually going to be able to handle teaching. Yet, adding coaching duties to that was going to be a challenge. I am determined to get back to work full time, regardless of what the doctors have told me, and since I seemed to be able to handle the standing that teaching was throwing at me, I figured I could handle the coaching on top of it. Though I do have some stiffness and soreness after practices and games, so far it has not been anything that I can't handle. I just have to make sure I don't overdo anything and ignore any warning signs like I did before.

I can tell you that I am getting a real good idea of how efficient a teacher who also coaches has to be at both jobs. Time management is very important. Once the games started and I found myself not getting home until after 8 pm, I discovered how important my planning period was, as very little time was left for me to prepare for teaching, and grade papers, at home. Monica is also having some princess moments and not like the fact that there is not much "us" time right now. I remind her that she is seeing how I felt when she doing all those clinicals at night and on the weekends while working full time, but just like her, I am doing what it takes to make my eventual job search easier.