Its the end! But not really...

It’s the last week of teaching practice and I am still enjoying it. Despite only having been at Bosmansdam for two weeks, I have to admit that I am still very much fond of the interaction with learners, especially those who I can see are eager to know more and to do well. My experience with the learners at Bosmansdam thus far has been a testing one. The learners here are much more prone to taking advantage of the student teacher, lessons this week saw a number of learners being late for class as well as generally not paying attention in class. Each offence was dealt with as needed. The learners seemed to only just be getting used to me by the time I had to leave which was very sad for me, not emotionally, but just a general feeling of having left things half done. I would have loved to have spent more time with these learners in order to see the effects of my lessons on the tests which they had done on Thursday.

I warmed up a great deal to this school in my last week here, the different characters in each class, the general interaction with learners in the hallways as well as class. If this has taught me anything though it is that I need to make sure I maintain the boundaries between teacher and friend. Many learners can misinterpret a friendly teacher as being a friend and I think this is something I might have trouble with as I am a very friendly person naturally. My plan is just to have a set of rules that I stick by and enforce them for all learners regardless what they think. This will ensure fairness and a good working environment where all learners are motivated to work and get things done.

Monday I had planned to catch up on some observations for my subject of Maths Lit and the day began as planed and I had thus not planned any lessons for the day. This however changed as my teacher was called to the hall for an emergency. I took over the class and went through some activities with the class, the lesson turned out to be quite a success as we completed quite a bit of work, the reason so much could be done is because the learners sat quietly and did the work. Previously I had attributed the slow working pace of the class to them not being able to understand but that day I realised they were simply too distracted before.

My lessons on Tuesday went very well, my grade 10 class was very responsive in their lesson and the grade 11s seemed to catch on to the work well. My only issue with the grade 11s is how familiar they are becoming with me. Many of them push the boundaries with talking while I talk, or making jokes of “free period” when they ask if I am teaching. I do plan to enforce stricter discipline once I have my own class and I do not have another person’s class to try and take over in such a short time.

Wednesday I did a bit of revision with my classes for a test they were writing on Thursday and they seemed to appreciate it, many of them left the class saying they finally understood, and they felt ready for the test the next day. They were much more interested once it was work that they had to do for a test. I am considering giving my classes the outline of a test long in advance, at least a week so that they can see what they need to focus on for the test. This is just an idea for now and will need a lot more thought and planning but it’s a start of a plan for my teaching next year.

Thursday was meant to be my last day of teaching as I finished off my last few lessons with the classes but the class had to go over their tests one more time in class so they could see all of their mistakes and correct them.  This ran over into Friday and from what I have seen, learners do not respond well to this kind of work on a Friday, Fridays require a more fun program to keep learners attention.

My final week at the school was a good one in the end, there were a few hang ups and a few times where I was frustrated by the learners but I still looked forward to class every day and that to me is the best part. I am still very much excited to become a teacher and to have a class of my own soon.

Lets start again

So this week I began at my second school, Bosmansdam High School. It started off a bit confusing but after the first day everything fell into place well. There are a couple of big differences from my previous school, The Settlers High School, mainly the facilities many classes do not have projectors etc., and the majority of staff is Afrikaans which is no problem for me it simply took some time to adjust to. The learners in the classes which I have experienced are much less talkative then what I have experienced before, this I guess I can attribute to the teaching styles of the teachers who take the classes which I am teaching at this point. I am one of two student teachers at the school at the moment and I have yet to connect with any of the teachers enough to sit down to a conversation with them at break time, at this point I saw my time here dragging out. This however was a good lesson to me that once I enter a school in the future, I should be quick about being friendly and building relationships with the other staff lest I be the kind of person who spends breaks on his own due to lack of company. On the Tuesday I began my first teaching interaction with the learners, this was a sort of test to get to know them and allow them to get to know me. The lessons were also somewhat impromptu as my mentor teacher was busy for the first 15 minutes of the period and I took the initiative to get started with the class while he was away. The lessons went well and I have already made some good notes on which learners would be potential trouble makers and will require more personal attention in order to prevent disruptions.
Wednesday’s class to me by surprise despite my planning for it, in all my fussing over finding this school I needed to do my last subject at, I failed to properly take note of the fact that the learners were Afrikaans as well. My lessons on Wednesday were in English and after explaining a particular section I was met with a hand at the back and when I called upon the boy whose hand was up he responded with, “kan maneer miskien in Afrikaans ook verduidelik”, I felt bad for having unintentionally disadvantaged the Afrikaans learners and I had promised to speak both Afrikaans and English in class. I learned that day to pay more attention to my surroundings as after some recalling of the lesson on the Thursday after, I remember some of the learners speaking Afrikaans in the hall ways before class.
Thursday was a bit of a hectic day, I struggled in the class while attempting to teach the grade 11 class and I say attempt because I know what I did was not teaching. The section was on design and planning and I underestimated the difficulty of the work. Rather than plan the lesson for the day I began planning my lesson which I was to be evaluated on by the university on Friday. The minimal planning led to some confusion on my part, with regards to the activity. I managed to figure it out but I had already lost the class and many of them began talking etc. This was the first and will be the last time I make the mistake of underpreparing for a lesson.
On Friday morning I was asked to keep an eye on the concession class, the overflow learners during a test period. I was somewhat thrown in on the deep end as this class had multiple grades and different starting times for their papers. But all went well, there were no incidences, no learners attempted to talk or cheat and I think over all it was a good experience to develop some invigilation skills. Shortly after this I met my evaluator for my Maths Lit lesson, which went as well as I could have hoped considering I had only been with these students for four days and only taught them twice before.  At the end of the day my first week with these learners was great, I have already made some good connections with many of them and I foresee my next week going very well.

Genesis 2 vs 2

Genesis 2 vs 2 - And on the seventh day God rested…

But in this seventh week I worked harder than I have before. This week was the week of my evaluation lessons, well two of the three at least. Monday of this week was fairly uneventful, I went through the day as normal teaching the classes which I have had assigned to me. The only change however would be the preparing of my classes for the next day, Tuesday, when I would have my Evaluated lesson. By preparing the class I simply mean I spoke to them about their good behaviour in the past few weeks and how I appreciated it, but that there were a few times when the good behaviour had faded into a slightly noisy situation.  The classes were more than happy to work with me and be on their best behaviour when the evaluator got here. I had some doubts about their promises to behave, particularly the grade 9 class which I teach as there are a number of learners in that class who are quite well known in the school as talkative and difficult to manage in class. In the past, even with these particular learners I have never had any major issues although they have proven themselves to be quite talkative and easily distracted which I have been able to manage in the past quite easily. All doubts aside, I made no alterations to the class, all learners were to be present and in the place they had been sitting all along.

Tuesday arrives and I have to say, by the end of the day I had developed a new respect for the ability of the learners to buy into certain behaviour. My evaluation lessons went very well to say the least. Learners in my Natural Science class, grade 9, who are usually talkative and easily distracted were now silent and focused. Learners who had previously not wanted to speak or answer questions in class were now asking very good questions and communicating well. On this note I have had my interest sparked in studying the development of learners’ personalities in a group of strong personalities verses a group of weaker personalities. I plan to take this interest further.

My second class, the life science class of grade 10s was very much the same, learners who have difficulty judging when to talk loud and when to whisper were on their best behaviour and every single one of them was taking part and working as they were expected to.  I had one learner though who insisted on turning around to talk, this gave me a chance to show my stern side as I was able to reprimand him move him to the front of the class where I had a better chance of holding his attention. This worked very well as he was quiet for the remainder of the lesson. I have learned that I do however need to factor in more time for learners questions, especially with topics such as sexual reproduction and other topics which may require more explanation then CAPS states.  My second lesson was cut slightly short by the bell as I had spent quite some time answering questions the learners had, pertaining to the work we were busy with.

Wednesday was very much more relaxed as I had given many of my classes back to my mentor teacher in order for him to do some admin and cover some last minute work before the exam period is initiated. This gave me time to get my file in order.  This week the new prefects for 2017 were announced, and I have learned today even more then in my years of life that “Power Corrupts”. The new prefects have been given the authority of the headmistress and as such a surge in punishments have found their way into many of my classes. Many of my lower grade classes have complained about being given punishments for minor offences which they were able to get away with previously. This reminded me of a study I once read where a group of students were split and half were to act as prison guards and the other half the prisoners. The results were profound showing that even people, who were friends before, once given this power, used their power to oppress others. If this week has taught me anything it’s that children can be ruthless and brutally honest which is both a good and bad thing. I will take this lesson and use it to learn how to react appropriately when these situations arise. 

This week, being my last week at the school before I move to a second school, I had a small class party for my two grade 11 classes. It was wonderful to connect with them on a more social level and hear about their fears for what to study after matric or even just their opinion on this issue with girls’ hair which is trending at the moment. My experience at this school has been an amazing and unforgettable one. I found myself feeling empty having to leave behind “my children”. After speaking to an uncle of mine who is in the education field himself, I was assured that this feeling is confirmation that I am in the right place and that I have chosen the career paths which I am meant to be in.

I am very happy and grateful to have spent that time with those learners and the school in general and I look forward to my future in education.