The wonderful adventures of Kate

I am learning so much student teaching.  I knew it would be hard, and everyone told me that.  But no one alluded to the fact that this experience would help me grow in way’s that I have never imagined.  I am a really shy person.  Being in the front of the classroom, around 100 students everyday has created a new found confidence that I have never experienced in my life before.  I have a voice that is loud.  Shocking to me to say the least.  Classroom management and confidence was the scariest part about this experience, but so far, it seems to be going rather well.  There are things I like to refer to as “hiccups”, a bad attitude here and there, students going a little too far with certain topics that become inappropriate, but overall my kids are wonderful.  I really love them, and while I use the word love in my life more than most people, I truly mean that.

Today’s lesson was not a super success, or a super failure.  I have a hunch that I will feel that on most days for the first few years of this growing and learning experience.  This may not be a bad thing, as long as the days are full of laughter with my students like today was.  I’m beginning to be able to reflect on my lessons between classes.  It is helpful to be able to change things on the fly per class.  Having mixed ability leveled classes has been so hard, but has made me strive to be better for them.

Sometimes as a teacher, you have to take yourself out of the equation.  Easier said than done, definitely.  This week, even though it is Tuesday, has shown me that.  Even when your pride is hurt, when your feelings are bruised, or you feel personally attacked, you must step back and realize usually the student did not mean to do that.  Usually something else has caused them to do something to make you upset.  However, it is hard to help students who SEEM to not want to help themselves.  Motivation is one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn, with my cooperating teacher’s assistance.  To think that the student did not do something because of you is foolish, even though you are still hurt on the inside.  Chances are not limited in life, and school is just another part of life.  Kids get to mess up just like us adults do.  We have to not push them down after they fall, but put out a hand to help them climb back up.

The most important lesson that I have learned this week has been to make sure I have me time.  While this seems silly, lately I have been working constantly on lesson plans and unit plans, reflecting on how to become better, making sure I see my boyfriend enough, and working a part time job, I have seemed to forget about my mental health in the bigger picture.  Balance is a key factor in being a teacher and staying sane.  I am a perfectionist at heart, and while in most instances and professions, this trait is considered good, it is hard as a teacher.  Nothing you do will be perfect, and constant hard work is required to grow.  Hard concept to really hold onto.

This week will be more about the balance of students in my life, lesson planning, making sure I have me time so I keep my smile for my students and for myself.

As I sit here and watch hell’s kitchen with a puppy on me as my form of relaxation, I am really thinking back about today and not the television program.  Today was a fail in the scale of successful lessons.  My kids weren’t engaged and they weren’t engaged yesterday by the lack of preparation.  Am I not preparing them for their activities?  Am I finding activities that are over their heads?  What can I do to get them to not just sit and stare at me for forty minutes.  I find myself asking this question, and I refuse to blame anyone in the situation.  I will not be the student teacher who blames the students for not finding interest in my lessons.  But I also refuse to completely blame myself and wallow.  I’ve tried being more prepared with questions.  I’m working on making more meaningful personal connections.  Tomorrow will be a new activity that will hopefully perk fire’s interest.  I will walk into class like it is my first day teaching, with a bright smile on my face and maybe, just maybe, they will talk.

My cooperating teacher said something inspiring yesterday.  Don’t teach for the whole class, just teach for one student.  If one student gets something out of it, you haven’t failed.  That’s not a direct quote, and I might be embellishing, but it’s what I need to keep thinking to get out of bed at the crack of dawn to face my fears again.  Tomorrow, hostess face on no matter what.  I’m doing an activity that I LOVE.  Hopefully my student’s love it too.  If not, I’ll just try again next week to engage them.  I will not give up.

This week was one of learning and roller coasters.  It was also one that showed me that all of the jobs I’ve done in my life have been completely mindless.  While there is an art and skill to being a hostess, one that I only understand now after 2 years, teaching is the hardest thing I’ve ever undertaken.  There is always an immense learning curve to be had when starting something new.  Even if it seems simple to begin with, like riding a bike or learning how to knit.

Skills like learning how to read kids, getting them to become inquisitive learners, asking the correct and well placed question and being in control of a classroom with a minimum of laid out rules is something that cannot be taught in a classroom.  My teacher prep program is hypocritical and unable to prepare students to become student teachers, let alone actual teachers.  Creating student centered activities that are not disguised as something that is actually low order thinking has been the most challenging monument to overcome.   I’ve realized that continuing to become angry about this is wasteful energy.  Que Sera.  Without my cooperating teacher I’d be lost.  My informal control of my classroom, as my student teaching supervisor put it, is where I am at now and I can only hope it continues to get easier.  I know there will be peaks, valleys, and tears of joy and frustration.  But if I plan to grow over time, even continuing once I become a teacher legitimately, it is something that I will have to grow to embrace.  I am not perfect, I will never be perfect.  But neither is my cooperating teacher.  Seeing him teach a lesson that is failing, shows me that even people doing it for years can still have a bad day and that I am not alone.

Step one was learning my area’s where I needed work, and now I’m moving on to step two which is acknowledging these areas and working at them, which has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.  One thing that I have to remember, is that I’m not going through all of this alone.  My supervisor, my cooperating teacher, and my students are there for me, and I have to be there for them as well.  My students are going through the same peaks, valleys and tears that I am.  We will learn together.