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.