I discovered very early that my idea of 'kids' was in for a battering! Did I think it all through first? Well, yes, I thought I had. One thing I do wish I had done, and I advise you to do, if you are just starting to teach, is to keep a diary. A school diary/scrapbook with all of the funny things kids say, parents write, odd happenings. There will be millions. They will enrich your life. On the days when it really did seem all a bit of a flop, a little moment of silliness will spring out of that day and say, "Hey, there was me!"
After that first day, I thought it would get easier. My year 9 class was held in a room which conveniently stored all of the old furniture, broken chairs, subsided bookshelves. Needless to say the first fifteen minutes of each lesson was spent in finding the kids. My year 10 class, on the other hand, was a set up. All of the troubled/troublesome kids whom no-one wanted, had been put in this one. There were 32 all together and about 6 didn't have some kind of trauma/obsession/grudge. Now, you might think that was an awful thing to do to a beginning teacher and you would be right but it did teach me how to teach. Those disordered, little creatures showed me that I did have a temper, concealed for many years, and that I had qualities which supported kids. Their judgement was usually fair and always firm. I just had to emulate that and add a touch of compassion and patience. The latter turned out to be the hard part. I thought patience was listening tranquilly, smiling benignly and not swearing. It soon became clear that patience is multilayered and I had only skimmed the surface.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Don't Burn Out Early!
Hi there,
When I started teaching high school, I thought it would be difficult and demanding, yes, but I didn't realise that it would teach me about me.
The students taught me more about what teaching is than college. That's not to mean that college wasn't helpful, of course it was, but it wasn't the full picture. Kids, particularly the worst behaved ones, tell you about yourself, what you can tolerate, what's not so nice about your character and all kinds of little surprises in between. For some, this is not a welcome lesson and they shut their ears to it and plod on, irrespective of damage to kids and the profession.
I've been teaching long enough now to have decided that the biggest hurdles in teaching is the 'system' and some of the colleagues one has to cope with, rather than the kids who don't want to learn or who would rather swear at you all day instead.
Sound negative? No, I enjoy teaching but there are so many problems in the education system itself that it is a shame to watch kids and fantastic teachers day after day wasting a lot of energy.
My first ever lesson was memorable. I had been appointed to a rural high school. When the phone call came, I didn't even have a mental picture of where the place was on a map of the state. I just agreed straightaway as I knew then that jobs were scarce.
My first class was Year 9 English and about 18 of the 26 kids were indigenous. Until that day, I had never spoken to an indigenous person before. I kept thinking, I haven't been taught how to teach these people. I am sure they have a different learning pattern but what is it? A touch of panic swept up and down my spine as I entered the classroom.
Smiling, I told the class my name and how happy I was to be their teacher for English. As I did so, I turned around and wrote my name on the board in big, clear letters as I had been instructed in college. I hadn't been told in college that half of the class would disappear while I was doing so. Yes, as I turned back to the board, the rear two rows had come to some unanimous decision and filed silently out of the door. What had they sensed?
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the hour long lesson facing the class. If I had to write on the board, I kept my attention on the kids and sort of wrote sideways in a scrawl, totally certain I would end up with no-one in the room if I looked fully at what I was writing.
At the end of the day at staff meeting, the principal asked if anyone had lost several students who had spent the first lesson sitting on the oval smoking. I raised my hand.
"Got a bit to learn there, Missy."
When I started teaching high school, I thought it would be difficult and demanding, yes, but I didn't realise that it would teach me about me.
The students taught me more about what teaching is than college. That's not to mean that college wasn't helpful, of course it was, but it wasn't the full picture. Kids, particularly the worst behaved ones, tell you about yourself, what you can tolerate, what's not so nice about your character and all kinds of little surprises in between. For some, this is not a welcome lesson and they shut their ears to it and plod on, irrespective of damage to kids and the profession.
I've been teaching long enough now to have decided that the biggest hurdles in teaching is the 'system' and some of the colleagues one has to cope with, rather than the kids who don't want to learn or who would rather swear at you all day instead.
Sound negative? No, I enjoy teaching but there are so many problems in the education system itself that it is a shame to watch kids and fantastic teachers day after day wasting a lot of energy.
My first ever lesson was memorable. I had been appointed to a rural high school. When the phone call came, I didn't even have a mental picture of where the place was on a map of the state. I just agreed straightaway as I knew then that jobs were scarce.
My first class was Year 9 English and about 18 of the 26 kids were indigenous. Until that day, I had never spoken to an indigenous person before. I kept thinking, I haven't been taught how to teach these people. I am sure they have a different learning pattern but what is it? A touch of panic swept up and down my spine as I entered the classroom.
Smiling, I told the class my name and how happy I was to be their teacher for English. As I did so, I turned around and wrote my name on the board in big, clear letters as I had been instructed in college. I hadn't been told in college that half of the class would disappear while I was doing so. Yes, as I turned back to the board, the rear two rows had come to some unanimous decision and filed silently out of the door. What had they sensed?
Needless to say, I spent the rest of the hour long lesson facing the class. If I had to write on the board, I kept my attention on the kids and sort of wrote sideways in a scrawl, totally certain I would end up with no-one in the room if I looked fully at what I was writing.
At the end of the day at staff meeting, the principal asked if anyone had lost several students who had spent the first lesson sitting on the oval smoking. I raised my hand.
"Got a bit to learn there, Missy."
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