Student teaching is the finish line for the senior education majors, including myself, here at Eastern Mennonite University. It’s a rewarding experience, but it can also be taxing on the mind and body. Let me introduce myself: Hi, my name is Riley Quezada, I use he/they pronouns and I am a senior music education major who is currently a student teaching in a county elementary school and is also about to transition into a city middle school. Throughout my four years on campus, I’ve learned a lot about myself and how to handle things in a classroom, but one thing I’m still learning while going through the process of student teaching is the balance between being a teacher and being a human being as well as separating my life as a teacher from my friends and housemates lives of being college students. We’ve all heard about self-care and how it’s important to do it, but you don’t think that it is important until you feel like you’re drowning in work and the exhaustion starts to take over.
As I was going through the education program, all the professors reminded me that once I got to student teaching, that would be the only thing I needed to focus on. One even said that we were going to have to eat, sleep, and breathe student teaching. Once applications for student teaching came out, I was terrified, but I went through with it and submitted it.
When I submitted my application to the Teacher Education Admission Committee (TEAC) to be a student teacher, one of the questions I answered was about extracurricular activities and about holding a job. In the teacher education handbook, they make it clear that having a job and doing anything else that isn’t student teaching is strongly discouraged. If one were to continue any campus involvement and/or continue to hold an on/off campus job they would have to submit a letter to TEAC asking for permission. TEAC has the right to approve or deny anyone’s letter, but if one is granted permission, one has to ensure that the work hours don’t exceed 10 hours. I don’t know if you know this, but student teachers don’t get paid for this full-time workload so holding a job while student teaching is important especially since you are the one driving to and from placements. When I submitted my letter, I asked for permission to continue in University Choir, Chamber Orchestra, and my job at Five Below to continue to grow as a musician and make money that is used for gas and groceries. Thankfully, my approval came in along with my acceptance letter, but they also reminded me that student teaching comes first and they have the right to ask me to terminate anything I’m doing if it starts to affect my performance in student teaching. There was no mention of mental health and how to balance it.
Going through this semester as a student teacher has been a learning curve. Along with having two field placements, I’m also registered in one class, which meets once a week and goes hand-in-hand with student teaching. On top of being a teacher in training, I’m also a human being who suffers from mental illnesses and is still learning to put themselves first. Attempting to eat, sleep, and breathe student teaching is mentally taxing and draining. By week two, I was struggling to keep myself afloat,only finding relief in my music ensembles. At one point, I had to step back and focus only on my mental health. When I reached out for resources and advice, I was met with a lot of dead ends and many reminders that student teaching should always be first and that a focus on my health could come after my work for student teaching was done. Thankfully, my first cooperating teacher was helpful and gave me tools to use, while also reminding me that I am allowed to eat, sleep, and breathe. Student teaching isn’t going anywhere and I will be more successful if I put my mind to it, but first focusing more on my mental health.
Yes, schoolwork is important and the finish line isn’t too far off, but it’s not worth sacrificing your mental health for. Advocate for yourself and reach out for help from the ones that you trust. Eat, sleep, and breathe as much as you need. It will get done at your pace and you are not failing yourself or the others around you.