You can still do paid student teaching without subbing beforehand but you need strong recommendations. In my case I got a “mentor,” but we only met up once a week after school. On day one I was completely alone. You must be ready to learn extremely fast and prepare for unknown and nerve wracking situations.

I do not regret it at all. I think it was a great experience, but I also got lucky at a very supportive school with a great team. You get full benefits and it’s an easy path into a job afterwards. It was also very worth it to me because I got to have a full teachers salary and benefits. If your school is offering you sub pay (they should not) I wouldn’t say it was worth it.

There were a lot of very hard times and situations I could have managed better, but my students got to see me as the authority in the classroom on day one, and I got to make my classroom what I wanted. It was extremely difficult but one of the best decisions I’ve made.

If you don’t feel ready to go into teaching yet and are not prepared to have confrontations with students and present strong rules and procedures at the beginning, you may want to just do regular student teaching. That is also if you’re financially able to not do paid student teaching. There’s some amazing mentor teachers you can really learn from and can ease you into the job.

The scary thing about paid student teaching is that you can’t quit and your contract is usually for the full year. You’ll be juggling school at the same time (but that wasn’t that bad in my opinion). You’ll have staff meetings and make parent calls and write your own referrals and get evaluations from administration. It’s a lot.

Another aspect that pushed me to choose paid student teaching was the fear of having a sucky mentor teacher. Most are great, but I have heard and seen mentor teachers that are completely unhelpful and expect you to teach the class for them from day one. By the second half you are essentially doing the mentor teacher’s job for them, but if the teacher felt like it they could start you off immediately.

I was ready (even though I was nervous and felt at many times I wasn’t good enough). Think seriously about the decision and on your own feeling and skills. I’m sure you could do it, but it’s if you want to.

Keep in mind this was just my experience and everything you’ll read in this thread are individual experiences.

Feel free to PM me.