Virtually every educator in classrooms in America got there the same way — through student teaching. Someone opened their door, handed over the reins, and trusted a nervous college student to figure out how to make it work. At Martinsville, four “Cooperating” teachers are doing exactly that right now, and the stories behind why they said yes are as varied as the classrooms they share.

Linda Carpenter, Martinsville's K-12 music teacher covering everything from kindergarten general music to high school band and choir, is hosting a student teacher from Eastern Illinois University this semester. The arrangement works particularly well for an EIU music student, Carpenter explained, because Eastern requires its music student teachers to gain K-12 experience. When a placement school doesn't offer both elementary and secondary music, the student has to split between two programs. Martinsville has it all under one program, so her student teacher gets to stay put — teaching fifth and sixth grade band and then heading across town with Carpenter to the high school for band and choir rehearsals.

Lynn Smith, second-grade teacher, hosted her student teacher through Grand Canyon University — an online program that used a video-based evaluation process. The student teacher recorded herself teaching four times throughout the semester, Smith submitted formal evaluations, and all three parties — Smith, the student teacher, and the university instructor — met over Zoom to discuss each lesson.

Lynn Smith, who teaches second-grade, came into her placement with a head start. Her student teacher was already working in the building as a library and cafeteria aide when the superintendent asked if Smith would take her on. She already knew the teacher, already knew the school, and came in with a foundation most student teachers don't have. It made for a unique dynamic — Smith could focus immediately on developing teaching skills rather than orienting someone to the building.

Dyllon Staley, a high school social studies teacher in his fifth year, took on his first student teacher this semester from EIU — a decision he made partly for reasons he admits were self-interested. "I kind of got in a rut of doing the same stuff over and over again," he said. "Bringing in a student teacher — I get to learn from them." Staley’s Cooperating teacher had her own unusual context: He did his own student teaching during COVID, with half the students in the building at any time and, by his own account, an absent cooperating teacher who handed him the rubric and told him to grade himself. He is determined to do it differently.

What all four want parents and the community to understand is that a student teacher in the room does not mean the classroom is unsupervised. Cooperating teachers remain actively present — reviewing lesson plans, checking student work, monitoring progress toward learning goals, and watching for any student who needs more support than the student teacher can provide. "It's almost like they have two teachers in the room," Staley said. That second teacher can pull aside struggling students for one-on-one time that the regular schedule rarely allows.

The transition into full classroom control is gradual. Student teachers observe for the first couple of weeks, then begin picking up one class at a time until, by the fourth or fifth week, they are running the full day. The cooperating teacher never leaves — they are present for all of it. Then, toward the end of the semester, the student teacher begins easing back out, visiting other classrooms to see how different teachers run their rooms before the placement concludes.

Somewhere in classrooms across Illinois right now, former Martinsville students are teaching. Some of them learned how in these rooms.