Quality Education Comes in Many Forms BY Justin Curran

After three years of taking Mrs. Clift's Education Studies class, as well as Mrs. Boyle's Foundations of Education class last year, senior year threw me into the real world, interning with teachers to get hands-on TA experience. I hope to shine some light and give you a highlight reel of how great being a teacher's intern is and what it's all about.

By Justin Curran

​The role of the student and teacher are two very different and complex roles, but what happens when you combine the two?  Hello, I’m Justin, I’m mere days away from turning 18, and I’m well on my way to becoming not only an adult, but achieving my lifelong dream of being a teacher. I’ve always grown up knowing that my sole purpose was to graduate and eventually come back to school as a teacher, but high school has really been an experience that has made this “vision” suddenly become a reality I never expected, but in the best way possible. 

After three years of taking Mrs. Clift’s Education Studies class, as well as Mrs. Boyle’s Foundations of Education class last year, senior year threw me into the real world, interning with teachers to get hands-on TA experience. I hope to shine some light and give you a highlight reel of how great being a teacher’s intern is and what it’s all about. 

I intern at Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School. Due to my wide range of interests, I intern with Señora Benz for Spanish on Tuesdays and with Ms. Simas for Science on Thursdays. When I was first starting out, I was extremely nervous. As I went through Mr. Cook’s AP Calculus class and Señora Giblin’s AP Spanish class before my internship, I felt nervous about what the students as well as the teachers would think of me. Of course, looking back at that first week, my anxiety was silly, but they were real feelings I felt, and there isn’t enough to be said about the first day jitters being a true, valid emotion. 

Since then, I’ve risen to the occasion and I’ve accomplished much in my role of an intern. From the very first week I’ve accomplished a plethora of different tasks. Around mid-September I created a quiz on the Spanish basics for Señora Benz’s sixth grade Intro to Language class. I was then able to help grade those quizzes, which gave me reflective insight on what grading is really like for teachers. Giving amazing grades is so rewarding, but you feel that pang of guilt in your chest when one of your students doesn’t quite grasp the material, and doesn’t do so well on the assignment. I’ve found myself struggling to keep it together when I see a student score poorly on a quiz, even if I didn’t even make the quiz.

I also helped Ms. Simas with her element symbols assignment, reading off parts of the worksheet and asking students to answer questions. This helped me to get to know the names of my students better when they were spelling out their names using the element symbols and we wrote these spelled out names on the board.

I even got to help set up for Señora Benz’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, cutting out paper squares so the kids could make Leaning Tower of Pisa’s. I cut out rectangles so they could make mini flags, and cut string so they could make little papel picado! I even helped contribute to the slideshow that Señora Benz and Signora Pena showed to the students!!! 

Being a teacher intern has its ups and downs, but is truly a fun and rewarding experience that I look forward to every Tuesday and Thursday! Don’t just take it from me though, as some of my fellow teacher interns have been kind enough to offer me some insight on their experiences as well!

I was lucky enough to talk to one of my closest friends, Emma Malardo, who is also a senior at Coventry High, and interns for fifth graders at Western Coventry. She told me, “My internship has been such a beneficial experience for me and is sure to be the same for other aspiring educators. I’ve found myself welcomed into a wonderful community of staff and students who have taught me more of what being a teacher is like than learning through textbooks ever did.” 

I would like to echo everything Emma has told me! Rather than feeling like an awkward high school kid in a sea of middle school students and experienced teachers, I felt as though I was part of their family. For example, recently, when arriving at Señora Benz’s class for my internship, I was greeted with several enthusiastic “hi!”s and cheers from her sixth grade advisory, which was enough to make me tear up a bit. What Emma said about being welcomed couldn’t be said enough, as the communities of the other schools are extremely benevolent and sweet, and to that, on behalf of all my fellow teacher interns I thank all five elementary schools and ASFMS for their gratitude and kindness. I would also love to thank Emma for being able to offer some insight for me!

I was also able to hear from yet another fellow intern here at CHS, my good friend, senior Abby Fratus! She was delighted to tell me, “CHS has provided me with the wonderful opportunity of interning at Blackrock Elementary School, under Kindergarten teacher Mrs. Cohn. I’ve always been a very hands-on learner and the internship has allowed me to explore that part of myself more, as well as really understand and develop a teacher and student relationship with the kids. I would highly recommend an internship to any other student who is provided with the opportunity. ” 

While we learned a great deal from our teachers over the past few years, I definitely think actually being in the teacher position greatly changes things and puts into perspective the challenges, difficulties, pros, cons, etc of being a teacher. Everyday is a learning experience, and I feel as though there is always something new and I can always improve in every aspect of what I do.

Even if being a teacher is not your career of choice, interning someone that has experience in the career you’d like to go into, or just one you might be interested in, would definitely be of great benefit to you, and I would definitely recommend it! You may find out information that you could never learn in a classroom with a textbook, and you could gain experiences that could change your life forever, and in my short time interning for Señora Benz and Ms. Simas at ASFMS, I have gained just that, and I can already tell it will be a phenomenal year.