It’s been a while since I’ve made it to this blog. I’m on Spring break (woo for me)!
Let’s do a quick update – mostly as a reminder for myself.
After seven weeks of teaching in my practicum school, I’m started feeling comfortable in the school. I’m learning the names of teachers and students in and outside of my classes as well which helped me feel connected. I started a Sports Education Model basketball unit (for those of you who don’t know the model, it essentially simulates a mini league with students on teams with distinctive roles such as athletic trainer, coach, etc.) in my 4th week with my grade tens which was quite successful and well received by my students (even if I didn’t do everything that I had originally wanted with the unit – I had the flu for two weeks – just one more challenge to contend with). We’re even planning to do a flag football Sport Ed. Unit at the request of the students (thumbs up for that).
With my grade nines, a did a one week tchoukball unit in the final week before spring break – another success in P.E. – a great game to get all of your students involved. It has a novel fun design and very active requirement to play. Students were sprinting, doing allehoops, sharing the ball, and diving on the floor by day 3 (double thumbs up).
In the final week before spring break, I picked added one of my English’s supervising teacher’s English 12 classes to my workload, placing me at a whopping scary, yet satisfying 100% course load. Having only worked with grade 8’s in the classroom, I was a bit nervous to start with the 12’s but very excited at the same time. Luckily, my supervising teacher gave me the reigns of the class and left the room. I was instantly at ease, feeling I could be myself. The classes flew by quickly and, at least from what I could tell, were quite successful. The critical thinking and thoughtful, respectful engagement with the topics from a group of young individuals was supremely satisfying to see and be part of.
Finally, in my English 8 class, we worked through the novel “The Reluctant Journal of Henry K. Larsen culminating a creative project using a combination of quotations and images selected by the student to present a theme from the book. My biggest growth with my 8’s has been my comfort level with being in a classroom and being able to quickly make plans. By the end of week 5, I found myself being able to create plans with increasing expediency and ease. While this is at first a comforting and reassuring thought (that planning will not forever take me four hours for a single lesson), it’s also an unsettling prospect.
I now see the possible pitfalls of teachers – the temptation to become complacent, stale, and to simply plan what is easy because it is so. So far I found teaching to be challenging, scary, satisfying, at times easy and natural, and fun. But it seems too easy to simply get by doing a consistently mediocre job of teaching – something I never want for myself or my students. As I begin to find ways to save time in my planning, I have become increasingly aware of the voice in my head that says, take a break – you can get by with a simple plan (throwback to the early 2000’s for those guys), stop doing the extra work and just teach it. Yuck.
I’m happy in a way to be challenged by this and to be so self-aware. But I will not become that teacher. I’m still on track. Let’s do this.
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