The finish line is approaching

Six weeks. In the past six weeks I have learned a great many things both from good examples of what to do and bad examples, like what not to do.

This week I observed a class where a female learner’s cell phone was taken from her during class by the teacher. Being that cell phones are not allowed to be used during class time, this punishment was appropriate. However upon taking the phone from the learner, the teacher then began to read the messages which were open on the screen of the phone. This all took place in the span of about 2 minutes, while the teacher read the messages (silently in his head) several of the learners complained about the teacher not having the right to go through the messages. I personally did not see the messages but it must have been something explicit because after reading it the teacher’s expression was on of visible anger. The teacher then proceeded to shout at a learner who was defending the learner whose phone was taken away. I am of the opinion that the learners phone being takes was a good thing, but the teacher should not have read through the messages, or at least not in front of the learners in the class. The matter should have been dealt with more appropriately by means of a discussion with the learner at a later stage about the content.

In this week I had a few lessons free so I made a point of observing some of the Physical Education lessons, this was quite a fun experience as I got involved with the mini games which the learners and their teacher took part in, from hand tennis to basketball it was a good experience. The learners found it very nice to interact with their teacher (me) in a different setting to the regular classroom, and I feel that my relationship with the classes who I interacted with has grown substantially as they are quite a bit more open with me in class. The learners are more interactive and even the more quiet learners are taking part in discussions in class. There are a few learners who push the boundaries though, namely one or two learners who would call me by my first name rather than calling me “sir” or Mr. Harvey, which I do not tolerate and reprimand them on.

This week has taught me a lot, my mentor teacher was absent on Friday this week as he was attending a conference and I had to then take his classes for the day. A full day of lessons is quite tolling, more on my voice that anything else but I managed to make my way through the day without any hiccups or incidents. This was one of the first times when I was left to my own devices with a class. Being alone with the class is a different experience then having their teacher be in the room, the learners were very open and had a great deal of “risky” or embarrassing questions which they asked me. These questions came mainly from the grade 9's who are dealing with human reproduction at the moment, questions ranged from; “can a girl get pregnant if she swims in a pool that a man has ejaculated in?” to “is masturbation healthy?”. I answered all these questions to the best of my knowledge and furthermore encouraged the learners to ask more questions because that is how they will learn. I would like to think that I made a difference, even if it was just one learner who takes my “advice” or listens to what I had to say, it would still be something good.

On top of this brilliant interaction I have had, I am proud of myself for having learned the names of every learner I teach, my 2 grade 11 classes, 1 grade 10 class, and 1 grade 9 class, along with a few extras who I have gotten to know here and there from sport etc.  I have read from another student that there is difficulty with learning names, and at first it was difficult for me but I forced myself to learn their names by making sure I used their names often. I make a point of greeting them by name when I see then in the hall ways, or calling them by name if I see them talking in class. I find the learners very surprised when they realise that the student teacher knows their names and I like to joke with them by saying “if I know your name, there is a good reason why I know it”. Learners are very quick to be quiet once I say that.

I am very thankful that thus far I have not had any major issues take place in my teaching time, and I have built a very good relationship with all of my classes, even my disruptive grade 9 class has begun to calm down somewhat. While I do enjoy the nice time that I have had, I know that not all schools or even classes will be this easy to handle. But for now I am thoroughly enjoying my teaching practice and look forward to the weeks to come.

Week 5, still alive

What a week! Possibly the very first week without any sort of interruption, from holidays to sports days. This week was  full week of learning and teaching. This week i completed the necessary  lessons i required for my file for the senoir group in life science so i ended off the week focussing more on my grade 9 learners for natural science. The grade 9s are dealing with human reproduction at the moment, the penis, vagina and menstruation etc. From my own schooling experience i know that this topic can be very easily misunderstood or incorrectly taught due to learners reactions to it. Many boys seem to make it a joke while girls tend to be shy about it, i am generalising of course. With this in mind i made it my plan to remove any awkwardness or possible need for jokes from this section. Each lesson i have words which the class is to say out loud. My first lesson on the male reproductive system i told the class they were to pay attention to me at all times, and that if i raised my right hand they were to say the word "Penis" and if i raised my left hand they were to say the word "Vagina". At first there was quite a bit of laughter but as the lesson went on i found that these words lost their potency in terms of being "naughty words". The class seemed to pay attention to where i was in the class as well as what i was saying. There were the odd few who would still try and make a joke here and there but they were not as effective as the would have been. My plan was to allow the children to feel like they are doing something naughty i.e. screaming the word penis in class, but at the same time turn this into a learning experience. While the class was not 100% responsive and i did have a few learners drift off, for this particular class based on what i have observed of them with other teachers, even the fact that they participated and paid attention was a victory for me.

While this was a full week, on friday i had no classes to teach as i had finished each on my sections with the classes and my mentor teacher had wanted to begin the next sections with them, so simply  observing  was a welcomed change to the challenge of everyday teaching. Despite this i have been asked multiple times to teach the classes. I have developed a very good relationship with my two grade 11 classes to the point where they see me as somone who they can seek help from. One of the girls in a class had gotten the zipper of her rain coat(which was actually the jacket of the boy sitting next to her) jammed and despite me sitting quite far removed from the class at this point, she asked if i could help fix it, which i did. While this may not seem like a significant event, to me this speaks to at least one learner in the class seeing me as somone who is able to help with problems which  they themselves can not deal with and i think this is something for me to hold on to for days when i feel as though i am not making a difference or getting through to any of the learners.

This teaching experience, while not exactly the real thing, is very valuable and i am very impressed by my abiliy to deal with what each day brings forward. I do not expect every school to provide the same type of learners or the same type of schooling system but i do know that i currently know more than i did at the beginning of this year and that i find myself eager to know more and experience more. I have found that i am able to remember a remarkable number of names and faces in even this short space of time that i have been here. It helps to be able to call out a learner by their name when they are talking out of turn or generally misbehaving. The shock on their faces as they realise this student teacher who is only here for a short time knows their names, is priceless. Many learners show a great deal more respect once they are aware that you know their names.

Just as i say every week, i am thoroughly enjoying my time here despite a few hiccups here and there but i love that everyday is something different, something new. Even the same class taught one day apart can respond very differently and i like the idea of eachday being a fresh new challenge and i look forward to one day having my own classes to bond with and grow with.

A month already!!!

This week "started off" (2 holidays before the week even started) with me being thrown in the deep end. On wednesday i arrived at school with lessons ready only to be told that my mentor tea her was absent. Up until this point i had been making use of my mentors laptop to display my lessons as it was conected to the projector and internet. Had i known he would be absent i would have brought my own laptop, but unfortunately this was not what happened. I was however able to make a plan and ended up taking my class to the computer lab where one of the other teachers allowed me to do my lesson with his computer ( i made sure to stress my thankfulness to him for doing so).  Despite this hicup my lesson went well, aside from the occasional distraction of this different environment. This lesson was my first lesson with this particular class which has been begging me to teach them since the second week of school. The very same day i was asked to invigilate two grade 11 tests. The invigilation went well with no issues from the learners side, a couple of errors in the test paper were however pointed out and delt with. I am very fond of the grade 11s, both of the classes which i teach, i will unfortunately be teaching them much less in future as i need to build up a relationship with my grade 9 and 10 classes which i will be evaluated on. This makes me somewhat sad as  enjoy teaching the grade 11s most of all. I have to admit that i did not expect to become attatched to a class of learners quite this quickly. Nevertheless i do have to pass my year so my marks need to come first.

Thursday and friday passed by in somewhat of a blur. I was able to get some lessons done in both life and natural science which is good considering time is running out. In one of my life science lessons i recapped the work which i had done withthe learners in the weeks prior to today. My recap lesson consisted of a game of life science 30 seconds. I divided the class into teams and had a few members of each team come up and explain a word to their team. All of the words which were given to them had been covered in the lessons and the expectation was for the learners to use discriptions which they had learnt in class to explain the words to their teams. This did not go 100% as planned as learners resorted to other means of explaining  but the teams were able to guess correctly in any case. This lesson was the highlight of my week as it was so satisfying to watch the learners enjoy a lesson which i put effort into so much. Some of the learners even requested that i do recaps of all the work they had done in the 1st and 2nd term as well. This is however very unlikely but i do intend on making many more fun lessons for them to take part in.
Friday was the matrics 40 days at the school, it was wonderful to see all of the different outfits and careers which the matrics showcased. From firemen to doctors all had their plans. I would also point out that many of the naughtier faces do clean up well and put on good manners when they need to.

This week, as short as it was, was still jam packed and every moment was a new discovery and oppertunity for me to learn.

One day off

Week 3
The lower grades which I taught in the previous week were swapped out this week for a grade 11 class. I began teaching them the kidney this week. There are 2 classes which could not be more different from each other. The one class is a very small class with only about 17 learners and the other class is a full house of about 30. I began my lessons with them with a short video which worked very well, the learners paid attention and made an effort to ask questions after the video. I then moved forward with an informal class test on the information in the video and I am pleased to say that both classes did quite well in this small test, save for the one or two students who did not listen at all. This was a successful first lesson with both classes with minimal talking in the background and wonderful interaction. Unfortunately the lessons which followed (lessons without videos) were a bit more disruptive, with learners starting separate conversations and discussions during my explanations. I was forced to go against my nice nature and hand out writing out of the current work that we were doing as a punishment for their constant talking. While I am not a very short tempered individual I did feel quite offended at this occurrence. After some time to myself however I was able to recoup and remind myself that everything the learners do is not a personal attack on me as a teacher but rather simply a child doing what children do, i.e. push boundaries. I will be sure to be more firm with the classes from the moment they walk in so as to establish a good routine for the learners. My only drawback is that the mentor teacher I am shadowing allows for more discipline issues to occur than I am comfortable with during my teaching. This means that it will be more difficult for me to break the habits of the learners in the classes while still not being that dominating teacher who shouts every 10 seconds.
Teaching aside, I was asked to babysit a class of grade nine learners this week just for one period. They were an EMS class and I had no notes of any sort to keep them busy with so I requested that they write me a half page paragraph on what they would say a “good Teacher” is. From reading these notes I am quite surprised at the maturity of the learners who understand that there needs to be a fair amount of discipline in a classroom as well as structure. Many of the learners wrote that they would like a teacher who does not simply read out of the text book to them, or a teacher who is firm with them but nice at the same time. This was a wonderful learning experience for me as it reaffirms my thoughts on what children crave and that is structure. Children need a structure in place for them to grow within, a structure that is not too rigid but at the same time has clear boundaries. Even if these boundaries are only in place for them to test.
Sports practice this week were good, despite the holiday midweek removing one of the sports days, watching the learners play sport is interesting, identifying the learners who enjoy the sport and take it seriously and then the learners who are simply there because a sport is compulsory. There are a great many learners who take pride in their sport and play it to the best of their ability while at the same time there are some who are simply gifted with a talent but choose to show off rather than hone their skills.
Despite my lessons with the grade 11s not going as great as I had anticipated I am very interested to see how the grade 10s respond to me in the next week as I have had a number of the learners ask on a regular basis when it is that I would be teaching them.
At the end of the day this is a learning experience and the more of the bad behaviour and ill-discipline I experience, the more equipped I will be to handle it once I become a teacher. I will admit that on the odd occasion I do wish I had more time to sleep in but at this point in time even without being paid for what i am doing in the class I can say that I really do enjoy passing on knowledge to the learners i have had the privilege of interacting with.

Lets teach

Week 2

So, this week started off well I must admit that I am becoming very attached to my current school. The atmosphere and the general feel and reaction of students is something encouraging. There have been one or two moments of confusion and a few issues but they are cleared up very quickly and easily.

I feel that I have integrated into the school very well. My mentor teacher is a great teacher with some very helpful advice to give to me whenever I need it. I began my teaching in this week, started with grade 8 and 9 Natural Science. For the most part I will have to say that the learners in these grades are not as terrible as I had expected. The majority of discipline cases I experienced, and there were only a few, were learners talking or not taking down the notes. Being a student teacher I expected the learners to be more relaxed with their discipline and to challenge me more than they would a normal teacher. As mentioned before the only challenges were with talking during class, I have yet to have a rude, or even extremely disruptive learner in my class. Maybe I am just lucky for now as I have heard from other student teachers who are with me that some learners can be quite the handful.

I would have to say that I look forward to the time at which a learner challenges me in such a manner as I would like to find out for myself how I would fair in such a situation. Nevertheless I am grateful for the lack of issues.

My lesson preparation has been what consumes most of my time, occasionally only getting to bed after 1am only to wake up once again at 6am. Despite this odd schedule I find myself not being tired. I think the idea of teaching excites me at this point so much so that I look forward to waking up to be here.

My interaction with staff is some-what limited at this point as I have one mentor teacher who covers both subjects which I teach here and this means that I move around very little, but I do take some time to visit one or two other teachers in the periods which I get off during the day.

Being more integrated into the school means I now attend sport practices as well as cultural hours. I have chosen table tennis to be a part of as it is a sport which I was never involved in and I felt something new would be beneficial to me as a young teacher gaining experience in different areas and finding out where I would like to position myself in future. My cultural activity is the Animal Society, I am very fond of animals and I love what the society stands for and everything they have managed to do for animal anti cruelty. I do however see myself moving around between societies just so that once again I may experience multiple facets of this part of schooling life. The more you know, the better you are equipped to make decisions in the future.

A final point is that the teachers whom I have been in contact with are very helpful and full of advice which i gladly accept, mentioning to me how it is okay to say no, and the importance of not being a part of everything that you are asked to be a part of. I have come to understand that it is important to be seen and to make an effort to do my part, but at the same time I need to make sure that I am not taken advantage of because of my student teacher status.

I have to say I enjoyed my second week and I am very excited for the weeks to come.