Reflections from an (Almost) Teacher.

kicksandgiggles:

Never Gonna Give You Up: Things I’ve learned about teaching:

positivelypersistantteach:

• If you surround yourself with teachers who are regularly negative, they will bring you down as well.   It will affect your teaching.   Be professional, but stay out of negative discussions when possible.
• Always, always communicate with parents about the GOOD things.   If a problem ever arises, they aren’t so much on the defensive if they know you like and respect their kid.
• Document, document, document.   Any important notes that go home, I make photo copies of first.  I keep e-mails I have sent to parents.  I document meetings and phone calls as well on a communication log.
• Find a good lunch group.   They will be professional and personal support.  They will provide comic relief, and always be people you can count on.  Some of my best friends are the teachers that I eat/ate lunch with.
• Make time for yourself.   This is very hard to do, especially in your first year.  However, if you are not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of the kids.
• Personally, I almost always wear my hair up.   I’ve never gotten lice.   Lice like clean hair, so if there is an outbreak in your school use lots of gel and hairspray.
• What works once, might not work twice.
• Run things by your principal.  Keep that door of communication open. (This will also help you be less nervous during observations).
• Ebay can be your best friend.
• Praise.  Praise is the key to even the toughest kids.
• Consistency. 
• Being fair does not mean everyone gets the same things.  It means everyone gets what they need.
• When a kid thinks he/she is dumb, use the theory of multiple intelligences to explain that they are not.
• Incorporate their strengths into their weaknesses.
• Be happy to see your students.  Tell them that you are.
• Don’t be afraid to make a mistake.  Use it as a learning opportunity.  Especially for those students who think they do everything wrong.  ”See, even *I* make mistakes sometimes.”
• Be joyful.  
• Especially in the younger grades, the more excited YOU are about an activity, the more excited your kids will be.
• They all become *your* kids by the end of the year.

I love this.

(Source: positivelypersistentteach)

Becoming a teacher:

… still terrifies me. 

It’s been a while since my last post. Since finishing my prac and final assignments I have:

• Picked up a week of work teacher aiding at a state school (covering for long service leave)
• Moved house
• Found out that I got an A for the assignment I was sure I would fail (bringing me to an HD overall for that course. yay!)
• gone further into debt (finding out that a car accident a year ago now costs us nearly $4000)
• Started work on my honours again. 
• had to prove to centerlink that I am still studying so I can keep receiving benefits

So I’ve officially finished all of my core content subjects for my Bachelors, Passed everything first go (with plenty of HDs in there), and now the only things standing between me and graduating is my Honours Thesis, which I’m completing as my electives in the degree. 

I feel very lost though. I feel almost certain that being a teacher is not for me. There are so many things I love about working with children, but I definitely don’t feel passionate enough to deal with all the garbage that school teachers are expected to put up with, and I know that it is not in my personality to take the job of a full-time teacher. While I was on prac, I saw myself turning into a person that I just couldn’t stand, and while I learned so much from that experience, I feel like it became more and more obvious that I cannot do that job. 

I don’t know what this means. I desperately need the money, and I could earn so much more from working as a teacher than anything else I’m qualified to do. But should I do it for that reason when I recognise I have no love for that job? I don’t want to turn bitter and resentful and be doing a job just because I have the degree. 

Maybe I’m just weak and scared and that’s what’s stopping me. 

Maybe I first need to learn to take care of myself before deciding what I need to do. Because right now, I don’t feel like I’ll be able to succeed at anything. 

I’m done.

Tuesday the 26th of October, I completed the 30 days of my final Internship teaching grade 5.

I passed.

I was so unsure and so unconfident. I thought I may fail. I thought that I had really done a pretty average job, and could not be certain that I had done well enough to pass. But I did.

Friday the 29th of October, I submitted my last ever university assignment. It was a 4000 word project based on research conducted during my Internship.

I still fear I may not have completed this properly, unsure about the requirements and expecations. I followed the marking criteria carefully, though did not attach my ongoing reflections (as it was not included in the criteria) and I fear that I was actually supposed to. But there is little I can do about it now. I simply must be sure to check for emails… All I want is to pass.

That makes me sad. There was once a time that a B was unacceptable. That I would always put in my all to get a 85%+ score, and now, now I’m content to simply not have to do it again.

I have more to reflect on, and should really, at least, type up the reflections I have been doing for the PRI 4001 course and assignment. Just in case I’m required to show proof. I was just really hard put for time and prioritised re-typing a number of reflections at the bottom of the list, as there was nothing about it in the marking criteria. I just can’t help shake the feeling that they were supposed to be included anyway.

I just don’t want to worry about it any more. I worry too much.

Wednesday 21st

Should have looked like:

• Ball games carnival
• Morning Tea
• 2 hour literacy block - me teaching
• Lunch
• Computers - students working  on finishing reports and assessment activities

Actually looked like:

• Rain
• Ball Games Carnival cancelled
• Finishing work - Sound Waves, Maths, Visit from Japanese teacher RE an assignment due tomorrow
• Unorganised morning tea (with students inside finishing Japanese assignment)
• Ball Games announced to be on during middle session
• Ball Games Carnival started
• Rain
• Ball Games Carnival too wet, stopped and cancelled
• Back to class
• Fruit break to settle students
• Quiet reading time
• Start part of planned literacy block
• More rain
• Run into Lunch a bit (it’s ok, inside lunch anyway)
• Fire Alarm set off
• Gather students and walk onto oval
• Still raining
• Allowed to go back to class - students wet, tired and fussy
• Quiet reading and extra time to finish lunch and settle
• Attempt to finish literacy block
• End of school. 

*sigh*

Wow, the week gets away from me…

Monday: Rained. Testing, but the students could get started on their contract work while small groups were tested by J. It was J’s first day back after her trip away, it had been almost 4 weeks since the kids had seen her, and they were quite unsettled (the rain didn’t help). We got through some lessons I had planned but due to the testing it was out of routine. I got to see the students in quite a different light - with me taking on more authority, and how unsettling the day was. I feel like I managed them quite ok - I really wanted to find a balance between giving them some freedom, but keeping it peaceful enough to be a good learning environment. Watched some of the commonwealth games from the projector attached to the teacher’s computer, and students really enjoyed that, and produced some great writing inspired by watching the athletes. 

Tuesday: Still Raining. More testing, but this time completed as a whole class. I love Tuesdays - Primary Parade, PE, Music, and Library leaves us with very few teaching sessions, which was a nice break. Especially with the rain. We had a grade 5 meeting and I learnt so much - I was able to type into the unit planning document while the teachers discussed it, and it was really good for grounding my understanding in the PYP unit planning. I followed up on the writing task they’d begun the day before, and in the afternoon directed a discussion on the appropriate use of contractions. I felt I didn’t do so well in these lessons, even though I’d planned the contractions one over the weekend. 

Feedback from J included - Give clear instructions, be brief, use visual aides. These are what I need to work on most. My management is improving, and lesson transitions are ok, but my instructions get all tangled up, and the students lose focus waiting for me to say what I really mean (my words, not my teacher’s). 

Wednesday: I taught most of the day. And it really wasn’t that bad. I got some excellent feedback from J and she even got me to open up to sharing my stresses, worries and what was making me nervous. I didn’t get as much work done as I’d planned, but we got through everything important. The sun also came out and the kids could play outside, so that was a huge relief. My great discussion with J this afternoon included planning the rest of the week with her (for when I’m teaching with D), and her telling me what she saw in me that made her believe I’d be a good teacher.  I’m listing this to remind myself.

1. I have great one-on-one manner with the students
2. I am relational and connect naturally with the students
3. I am teachable. Other teachers who I’ve interacted with at this school even mentioned this fact to J. And J said that if she was employing a teacher, she’s not going to go for a beginning teacher who thinks they know everything, but someone who is open and teachable. 

I really just need to work on demonstrating a little more confidence and certainty in  the content I’m teaching, and give clearer instructions. 

I can’t believe I have 8 days left. It feels like forever, but it feels like it will over in a flash. Wow. 

Thursday & Friday

Thursday went much better than I expected. I had everything together for my day with my male mentor (D), planned out and ready for anything. Was able to record some great observations of the students doing maths, and picked up some great teaching strategies from D. Taught some lessons that with D there for a bit, away for a bit, and I just felt fairly comfortable for most of the day. 

Friday went less well. D taught maths again so I could observe, and it was great. There were a number of times though where he’d expected me to have done something, and I hadn’t (whether because I’d never seen it done before/I didn’t know I had to do it/I’d taken advice from someone else…) and he seemed disappointed. He gave me feedback from the day before, which was positive. As it was, it almost seemed as though I’d have no time to do my lesson finishing some work from the previous day, but as sport was cancelled, D suddenly handed the class over to me. Caught off-guard, I stumbled my way through a not-at-all-thought-out lesson on writing the body of a newspaper story. I felt like I did a terrible job, though the work that students produced was really very good. I feel like I get so nervous around D, he seems to always catch me on the incredibly rare occasions I do something stupid… or maybe I just do something stupid because I’m so nervous. I realised that day that I do not perform well. I really don’t. I never have. I always screw up, and I don’t know how to counter that. 

Some advice D gave me on Friday is something that will always stick with me - we as teachers, are there for the kids. We do everything for them. Not for us, for them. It’s hard to get out of the mind frame that ‘we know better, do what we say’ and start thinking about what the kids need over our own sense of what is more convenient. 

There is such a fine line, such a perfect balance, that I still can’t get my head around. 

2 weeks + 2 days left :)

thingsforteachers:

So You Want to Teach: What Makes a Great Teacher?

psithinkyousareawesomez:

positivelypersistantteach:

Great teachers are made by:

1. Understanding what sparks their students
   They know how to motivate them and what makes them hungry for knowledge.
2. Forming genuine bonds with their students
   This is important for the teacher as they establish trust with the student and interest in their learning abilities. This makes the student more apt to learn more and be open to new ideas.
3. Instilling a desire to continue to learn
   This is what happens outside of the classroom and is evidence that the teacher is making an impact. The student who learns from the teacher who makes it fun will find applicable situations to use his or her new-found knowledge outside of the classroom.
4. Explaining concepts in an understandable fashion
   Whether it’s basic fundamental concepts or complicated theories, the effective teacher can explain them in a way that the student can easily grasp and apply them. In early childhood education, this characteristic is very important because it is the time for instilling basic foundational learning concepts in the child that makes it easy for them to grasp.
5. Being organized and prepared
   Good teachers treat organization as a priority. It helps them to attend to the needs and requirements of each of their students if there is structure present. Teachers thrive on organization and are good examples to their students.
6. Making expectations clear
   Teachers use aids, resources, verbal and written cues to help their students understand what is expected from them. A good teacher will take the necessary time to make sure the student understands their objective and will even check periodically to make sure they’re on task.
7. (Click the link above to continue reading)

I tend to dislike these cheesy lists, I think this is really spot-on, and captures every facet that I try to reflect more strongly.