Experience Before Student Teaching

As I’ve discussed before, I had a really bad experience with my original student teaching co-op. I’ve realized, since my last visit with him, that one of his main problems with me was my lack of experience in choral conducting. I have always been interested in choral conducting; however, my only experience is in my two semesters of conducting I took at school. I do not believe that this lack of experience is necessarily my fault. Both my elementary and secondary practicum experiences were heavily general music based. Many of my classmates had heavily choir based experiences. I wanted a heavy choral student teaching placement because I haven’t had that experience. However, my original co-op felt that my lack of experience was a detriment to his program. I believe that the purpose of student teaching is to learn. I do not understand why I was denied a placement because of my lack of experience. Isn’t student teaching is where I should gain the experience?