This internship as a physical education teacher helped me gain professional experience in the career field I am interested in. I was able to work on communication skills for both adults that I worked with as well as the students I was teaching. It helped me gain insight on what worked well in the classroom and what I needed to work on to connect with the students.
My internship definitely tied into my major of study. My three concentrations were kinesiology, sociology, and public health. All three of these related to my internship since I had to use knowledge from all of them to be successful.
In order to perform my internship I did need to complete a background check but there were not specific education requirements since it was a learning experience.
After completing this internship, I have learned that I am not interested in working with this age group. It was a lot harder for me to relate to them rather than an age group that is a bit older. I am happy that this internship helped show this to me so that I did not apply for a job at this age group without any experience and not like it. Now that I am more prepared, I can choose a job in an age range that I feel I can excel at and may enjoy more.
In order to pursue a career in this field, I would need to have a Bachelor’s Degree. I would also need to do a lot of school based training on different types of harassment and communication, and different confidentiality trainings. I would have to go through an interview process as well as come up with a lesson plan to show how I would ensure the students were learning the correct competencies for each skill I was teaching.
I would tell incoming interns they need to go into this internship with an open mindset. Elementary school is different than when we were in elementary school and since so many things have changed, they have to be able to adapt and think on their feet while keeping an open mind.
