I take every opportunity to have budding educators in my room because it makes me a stronger teacher. From high school students who are interns in a future teacher program to college students who are getting ready to take their first steps into becoming a full teacher (and every observer in between), I LOVE having folks in. When there are people in my classroom, watching how the students interact and respond to the environment I've set, my senses go on hyper-speed. I feel like I'm a very evaluative teacher that always self-analyzes lessons and direction prompts, and that I can ALWAYS improve.
When people are in my room, here's what happens:
1. My philosophy of education and behaviors get questioned and become stronger. No one leaves my classroom with just a set of observation notes--they get a little piece of WHY what's going on our room is important and relevant to the education of the entire child.
2. My questioning skills become sharper. What am I doing that is gaining the specific response that I'm seeing at that particular time? With single observers, I don't get a chance to ask them too many questions because they aren't looking at my classroom more than once. With student teachers, I get to sharpen what I do with my tiny humans and how I ask questions to the student teacher about what they are noticing in my classroom. Are they noticing how the students respond to Question Stem A versus Question Stem B? Did the student teacher catch a questioning technique I used to guide the students through a very difficult concept?
3. My students gain a stronger teacher. Through inviting observers into my room, my students benefit from having me become more reflective on my teaching, and future students gain a stronger future teacher that just might be their teacher one day, too.