Accompanying teachers throughout two semesters, student teachers have become commonplace in the halls and classrooms of high schools. English teacher MaryKris Roberson has made it her goal to leave these student teachers with as many tools for education as possible. All of her hard work has paid off in the form of the award that she was recently nominated for and successfully won.

“It’s called the Distinguished Cooperating Teaching Award,” Roberson said. “It’s an award for service to the profession of teaching, meaning that for my work with student interns and Block II students and all sorts of KSU students and the college of education as they’re on their path toward their goal of professional certification.”

Over her long teaching career, Roberson has had numerous student teachers who have both challenged and rewarded her, but what has not changed is her close bond with them.

“I have had about 16 student teachers and that’s a big number for me because I don’t usually like to give up my students and let someone else work with them because I’m very maternal when it comes to my students,” Roberson said.

Though on the surface the emotional attachment seems like the hardest part of having a student teacher, it also lies in the leadership side of it.

“A lot of people when I tell someone outside of teaching that I have a student teacher they’re like ‘oh then your job’s super easy right now because you have someone else doing it for you’ but it really isn’t easy to have a student teacher and to work with a student teacher because you basically have to teach someone else your job and help them think about what they need to do to make sure that nothing is lost for your students,” Roberson said.

Even with this challenge, Roberson enjoys not only teaching the future teachers, but learning from them as well.

“It’s just this symbiotic relationship where we all build our learning from each other and that’s what makes it so wonderful,” Roberson said, “Learning just isn’t a one way street, it’s a great experience for me as a cooperating teacher because it helps me construct and model and instill good teaching methods for my student teachers and to learn from them too.”

Roberson has been brought up to speed on pop culture thanks to her student teachers.

“They keep me current with pop references, with films, with literature and music and all of the things that seep into the classroom,” Roberson said, “That’s a good way to stay current and relevant for my own students, as well as teaching me about technology and technological advancements when it comes to teaching.”