I love it how other people that I know are exclaiming that student teachers have got it easy. No longer do we have to worry about taking tests, finishing up homework, or cramming and staying up all hours of the night. When I hear people talking about this, I have to disagree with their statements. Yes, we don’t have written exams anymore. No, we don’t have to go to a class in which we listen to a teacher talk, but we do have tests. We get tested every day! We are tested by our students in more ways than you can think of when you are preparing to become a teacher and we don’t even get a multiple choice question or a true/false. The tests are more complicated and more intense. We are not questioned on how much we studied and memorized.
Teaching is like an exam filled with open ended questions. Now we are the teachers in the classroom and while we may not have actual homework to turn in, if we don’t prepare for the classes we teach, then it’s just the same as not doing our homework. So no, it’s not better having any classes, exams, or homework. We may not be graded on a 4.0 scale anymore, but what we are doing is much more than that. Our successes and failures come at the hands of our students. No longer can we just worry about ourselves anymore; we have to worry about if our kids are learning in our classes. We have all of that every day, plus so much more.
I feel so uncomfortable in the locker room. I know what it was like for me in middle school/high school that I don’t want the students to feel like I am infringing on their personal space. During this time, I just go out into the gym and wait for the students to emerge from the locker room. In our teacher education program, that is the one thing we never really have talked about. This is a whole new ballgame; a whole new experience that a beginning teacher has to find out as they go. I don’t think any teacher education program across the country can prepare students for events and situations that may occur in locker rooms. It’s a learn as you go process and at this time, I am not learning a thing because I am not in there. I just need to overstep this comfort zone thing and find out how the students function in this area of physical education.
My first class today was a rough one and it’s full of 8th graders. It was a way to start out my second day here at the middle school. If I would’ve just seen that this was foreshadowing and setting up how the rest of the day would be, maybe I could’ve caught the signs earlier and began to rework how things were going to play out, but I guess hindsight is 20-20. They started doing Tae-Bo as well. As soon as the teacher turned on the video and left the class for a little bit, the students did absolutely nothing, not even one of them. They just kind of stood there looking dumbfounded. They knew what they were supposed to be doing, but as soon as the authority figure walked out of the room, everything went down the drain. I was trying to tell them how to do what the video was instructing them to do, but they weren’t having it. They just kind of stared at me and still did nothing. I guess I haven’t built a sense of rapport with the students yet for them to feel comfortable around me. That will take some time and I realize that.
It was a nice change and quite a surprise that the students gave us a round of applause just for being student teachers. I guess for them they enjoy having student teachers. It’s nice to see that students at this age are still excited about participating and being in physical education. The second class had 34 students in it and it is a 6th grade class. It was a really tight fit with all those students in a small aerobics room. It restricted some of the students’ movements. The students would start moving when the teacher came back in, but she left once again and the students stopped doing the videotape. It was interesting to see they dynamics change with and without the teacher.
I started with student perceptions with the last class of the day. They are a 7th grade class with 34 students. I don’t know who these kids are and haven’t had the chance to observe them and how they behave. I think that today’s lesson would’ve gone a lot better had I know what kind of students I was going to be working with. Granted, it’s all a part of the learning experience and I don’t even know that I would change anything the way I taught today. I think I would’ve just felt more comfortable had I seen the kids once before.
Nonetheless, I continued on with my lesson and had the students split themselves up into groups of 4. I explained to them the reasons for what we were doing and why we are doing it. I proceeded to give them all the materials that they needed to do the activity. I tried doing each question one by one, but giving the students the questions on a sheet of paper did not facilitate this process. As soon as they started, I felt as if things were starting to get chaotic. I could feel the class slipping away from me as more and more time passed by. As I was walking through the groups, I was thinking to myself, “What have you gotten yourself in to? You can’t do this.” After giving adequate time to answer those questions and discuss it with their group members, I brought them all back into a larger group so we could discuss what they had just did. I tried telling them that the one thing I expected from them was respect and that they listen to their classmates. However, it didn’t happen this way.
Long story short, I was very flustered at the end of it. As soon as the last student left the class, I just felt this rush of emotion and I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes. It was only a matter of time before the dam broke loose and all it took was one simple question from my supervising teacher. “If you had to teach this lesson again in 10 minutes, what would you change?” I had to sit on the opposite side of the room and put my hand up for a minute. The moment I began talking, I knew I would start crying and sure enough, I did. I was beating myself up for not having the lesson go according to my plan. I don’t know why I do this. I felt embarrassed because of what had just transpired. I felt embarrassed because here I was crying for no reason at all.
I tend to do that a lot more these days. I don’t know exactly the underlying cause to my screwed up emotions. I need to learn to take those moments and just look at the positives of what’s going on. The students are talking; I just need to open my ears to listen to them. (As I write that statement, I can’t help but think of the passage I just read in Mark 4:23 – If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear. It’s amazing how the Lord works in our lives without us knowing the reasons why. I can’t help but chuckle to have this epiphany at a time of weakness. The Lord does know what we are going through. We just have to open our ears to hear what He has to say; the same way we need to listen to our students.) I am thankful to have my supervising teacher there to help me with these situations. I know it is going to be hard to implement something the kids have never experienced before and something that is still very new to me. Sometimes I feel like a burden onto her, especially when she is always checking up on me to see if everything is okay. I don’t want to make her worry about me, particularly when what is going on is juvenile and I’m crying over things that are not very important in the grander scheme of things. It’s a learning process and it takes time, but I am ever so thankful to have her around to help keep my feet on the ground and keep me from running away from things when times get tough. She is truly someone I am grateful for and enjoy having in my life.
Tomorrow is a new day and I am thankful for the optimism I have while going into things. I could shut down and be a coward, but the Lord has granted me with a wonderful gift of being able to move on from things, no matter how terrible. I am able to see the next day as being a new day and have the ability to put the past in the past. I take those things, learn from it, grow in ways I can’t wrap my head around, and continue to pursue the goals I have set. The obstacles are just a part of everything in life and we can let them slow us down or we can plow right through them and be better people because of it. Tomorrow is truly a new day. :)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment