Student Teaching - Farewell

by Victoria Johnston - Mitchell Elementary

Six days. That is the amount of time I have left here in the city. As the days come and go I become increasingly more nostalgic and wish the time would not pass so quickly. This past week was less busy than most of the semester allowing me to breathe a little more than I had been.

On Wednesday we had a farewell dinner for Chicago Semester since all other students except student teachers finished on Friday. We ate dinner at The Parthenon in Greek Town and I consumed saganaki for the first time. If you, like me, are not familiar with saganaki it is a fried cheese that is flambéed immediately before serving and everyone in the room yells, “Opa!” when the flames ignite. Cheese in almost any form is one of my favorite things to eat and I therefore enjoyed the dish greatly. Apparently every semester our group is known to be considerably boisterous with their “Opa” and we hopefully continued that reputation. Saying goodbye to everyone was surreal, it does not seem like April is coming to a close. I am glad, though, that my roommate chose to stick around until Thursday otherwise this coming week might be slightly lonely.

Maple Bacon Doughnut

As usual I sampled more food places this weekend. I have frequented RA all semester and did so on Friday. It is a sushi place a block away from our apartments, but I had the opportunity to try a place called Starfruit that night as well. It is a place that sells frozen Kefir. This is similar to frozen yogurt, but a little more tart. It was delicious with mangoes and strawberries on top and made it my fourth day eating frozen yogurt this week (yes I have a problem). I went with a friend on this Friday night adventure, but our final destination for the night was slightly questionable in its outward appearance so we changed plans last minute and ended the night with a midnight doughnut at Glazed and Infused. Their assortment of doughnuts was unique. The two doughnuts we tried were the maple bacon and snack doughnut. Maple bacon is a maple doughnut with bacon on the top and the snack doughnut was a cake doughnut with frosting sprinkled with mini M&M’s, pretzels, and potato chips; it was oddly delicious.

This weekend has been full of food adventures and I do not have enough space to tell them all, but I will transition with this one. Saturday morning was a lovely day and so my roommate and I got frappuccinos from the coffee cart down the street. Now that weather is nicer all the restaurants are opening their windows and patio seating revealing that people actually live in Chicago.

My classroom

As I look forward, this is my final week student teaching. The thought of leaving my class makes me want to cry and when I depart from Mitchell Elementary Friday afternoon I probably will. I have been incredibly blessed by the school, my cooperating teacher, and students. While having 36 fifth graders has been a huge challenge, I would not trade this class for any other. On Thursday I observed two teachers at another school and did not see my students until the end of the school day. When they saw me I was showered with excitement and hugs that reinforced the reason I love teaching; it is all about the students.

I have now been teaching long enough to see progress in my students’ learning and this is exciting because I can know, by the grace of God, I did something right this semester. It brings a smile to my face every time a student says, “Miss Johnston don’t leave, I’m going to miss you.” Little do they know how much I will miss them too.
This semester has been one of the most challenging, stressful, and amazing semesters I have experienced. I do not regret my decision to move to Chicago for a second. Spring of 2013 taught me more than I can express in a blog post about teaching, myself, and trusting in God. Therefore, I will conclude with the words of A.A. Milne, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”