I wasn’t really sure what I was going to write down for my reflection when I sat down at my computer because well… I had a really good day at my practicum school this Thursday!  Not perfect by any means – I was 5 days in to a bad cold that was barely showing signs of getting better, with a course work load that was weighing down my mind so much that I was really worried about my stress levels when I walked through the school doors in the morning and wondered how it might affect my day.  However, even when you’re expecting things to not go your way (I was fretting over my morning coffee about how I was going to pull off a basketball lesson with a hoarse, croaky voice and a confused, stuffed-up head), sometimes things just fall into place.  The basketball lesson went really well (I personally felt it was the strongest lesson I’ve done to date, frog voice and all), I had some great moments with students that I felt I hadn’t “gotten through” to until that day, and I got some chances to work with a couple kids that I just always “click” with who always make me feel like a star teacher because my style of teaching jives well with their style of learning.  There was still constructive feedback to be had from my SA, and still moments to be learned from, but my overall perception on the day was one where I walked away from the school that day feeling proud of myself and just generally awesome.

So this reflection comes as an interesting contrast to last week’s.  Last week I was feeling really down after what I saw as a moment of weakness, and I was able to scribble out a reflection the moment the students left the classroom because I needed to get my feelings of disappointment out on the page so that I could look at them and start to learn from them.  However, in a week where I felt successful it was much, much harder to write about it! I opened a post editor window at 10 am this morning, left it 5 minutes later untitled, with a half-finished sentence, and I wasn’t able to sit down and write it for nearly 12 hours.  I think I learned just as much in both situations, but it can be harder to unpack your positive feelings because…. they’re well…. positive!  Negative feelings are really good at looking you right in the face and telling you exactly what was wrong, but positive feelings are a bit more elusive to pin down.

So I’m glad I had a great day, both for the great learning that happened and for just feeling like an awesome teacher.  I’m looking forward to another great day on Thursday, and I hope the positive momentum just keeps rolling along!