The Real Deal

Looking back on my observation I really appreciate having been able to get into my sponsor school before my actual practicum. Putting aside the whole teaching classes, lesson planning, dealing with students and all of the other stuff involved with being a teacher, just getting into a school and trying to find your place in the mix of everything is a big shock and can be difficult to do. I am sure I’m not alone in feeling that when I go back in January to actually do my practicum things won’t be as shocking as they would otherwise have been. Looking forward to my practicum, I feel like I have much better sense of what things will actually be like when I’m in the schools, and what will be expected of me when I’m there. I won’t lie though, in a lot of ways I’m still scared of what things will be like in January. Doing university classes for 4 and a bit years is one thing, but actually being out in the schools teaching students is something very different. Having to teach and do classroom management at the same time is a challenge that I don’t think any amount of teaching peers can quite prepare you for. I learned this the hard way this week when I taught a warm up in one of my sponsor’s classes, and found that a lot of kids were not paying attention or messing about, even though I was trying my best to make sure everyone was on task. Another thing that I found really difficult was asking kids questions to confirm if they understood what I was explaining. When I practiced this in our mini classroom lessons in university it seemed to work pretty well, but in the real world it just bogged down the pace of the class. Overall, I’m finding the adjustment to school teaching is trickier then I initially thought it would be. Despite these difficulties though, I think this whole observation period was a really beneficial and needed thing.