I have definitely gotten better as a teacher. I am definitely frustrated because I am used to being good at things and I started out terrible at teaching. looking back, I have learned a lot from my mentor teacher. I am glad I didn't have to face a class on my own without her help. Student teaching is good, but I am glad it is over. I am also still nervous about next year.
My lesson was horrible today. I was teaching inverse variation and direct variation and I made a statement that was completely wrong. I said that for direct variation when one thing increases so will the other one. But this isn't true if the constant is negative. y=kx. If k is negative then as x increases y will decrease. Anyway, I made this mistake during 4th period. My fourth period, honors class is very attentive, and they majorly pick on me when I make mistakes. I let this get to me. I know everyone makes mistakes, but I've been putting a lot of pressure on myslef to get things right with this class. As a result I was very dissappointed when I found out that I had said something completely wrong. I was so baffled by my mistake that I couldn't recover. the rest of my lesson completely suffered. I moved on to the next problem without real closure on my mistake, I left them with no explanation of what was the correct way to do it. I was so nervous thinking about that mistake that the rest of my lesson was terrible.
I learned something from today. At first I was really mad at myself for making a mistake. After reading over this blog, I realize that the problem was not the mistake itself, but the recovery from the mistake. When I am an experienced teacher, I am still going to make mistakes sometimes. It will be important to be able to explain to the students why the mistake happened, put closure on it so they have no confusion about the real way to solve the problems. Finally, they still need the rest of the material. In a basketball game you don't hang your head if you miss a three pointer. You think about how to make your shot the next time. you move on and finish the rest of the game. Next time I will do better.
So I am looking back over these blogs and I look really bitter and not very well spoken. I guess I should use this as a way to reorganize my thoughts and express professionally how I feel. I've been using it to just totally vent.
Here's a better summary of what I'm feeling.
Teaching is really hard. There's a lot of work that goes into it, and sometimes students pay no attention to you at all. This means that I put in effort that is for no reason at all. Additionally a high number of studenst don't even do the homework, creating a situation where they completely forget what we did the day before. And weekends are the worst. Students never remember what we learned on friday.
I can't figure out the pacing of everything. I'm either done way to early or rushing to get everything done before the bell rings. I know my mentor teacher is mad at me because I never get through what I am supposed to.
I have 2 preps but one of my class is an honors class and things are supposed to go a litlte differently with them so I have 3 preps. This means I spend 2-3 hrs a day and more on weekends working on stuff for a school day that is really only 4 hrs of teaching anyway. It's like standing in a line for a roller coaster. 1 hr line for 4 minute ride.
I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong, creating a situation where it's hard to get better. I have a hard time getting across the big picture of the math to the students. I feel like it's a lot to ask of a person (the first time they are teaching something) to be able to see the big picture. Unfortuanatly that leaves the kids out to dry. I feel like I am letting them down. IT doesn't seem like they've learned anything.
I really do want to be a good teacher.
So I guess I was being childish talking about how teachers suck when really I suck.
So I think I know why I am so frustrated.
I teach example problems, I explain how to do them. I give them guided practice (which have to flow with my examples or they get confused). If I give them any problems they've never seen before, they shut down and don't want to try. They give up. I thought teaching was about giving students the understanding so that they can use their knowledge to solve problems. Nope, teaching is about writing the perfect flow of problems so that students don't have to think, they just have to copy what you did before.
Teaching is boring. I should have known it would be since school was boring. Grrrrr...
I guess I should write on good days too, today was really hard.
I don't mean to sound like an intellectual snob, cuz I've spent a lot of time in life trying not to be one. In fact I have avoided certain educational classes to be "cool". I was one of the 40 people in my class of 400 that didn't take AP Government... I was one of 40 that didn't take AP English... and I was 1 of 40 who actually took Multivariable Calculus and Linear Algebra in high school. (only because math was easy) BUT, I don't think teaching high school will be enough for me as a life goal. (especially not in north carolina). Teachers are not smart people. (oops did I say that?) If they were smart people then someone would have written a book that tells stupid people how to teach. Can we say Idiots guide to teaching.
Shouldn't there be books that go through all the chapters in each subject, giving us example problems, example worksheets, that go slowly through the math and allow the idiots who become teachers to teach well? BECAUSE I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT TEXTBOOKS ARE WORTHLESS...
At my high school, we had to take Calculus to graduate. These kids at my school are taking Algebra 2 to graduate. UNC schools won't even let them in without a subject past algebra 2. So none of them give a shit about college. How am I supposed to teach kids who don't care about college when I think you have to go to college to be a respectable person.
This sounds a lot more snotty than I actually am, but I'm so frustrated right now I don't even know what else to say.
Peace out
G
I have no ability to be efficient with this teaching thing right now. I spend my whole planning period, as well as 4th period (since I'm not teaching yet) planning. Addititonally I spend about 2 hrs on the weekend and 2 hours a night during the week. I'm doing this all and I'm not getting paid for any of it... HAHAHA.
I feel like I come to class with good lesson plans. Where I fail is all the lines in between. How do you connect these ideas, how do you give studetns the big picture. I feel like all of these comments are improv. I have tried planning the segues but it doesn't work. I hope I grow into this ability cuz right now it's really frustrating.
Student teaching is really hard. We are doing work, homework, and being observed at all times. And we're not getting paid.
I really want to be good at this. That's what makes it so hard. I want to be a good teacher and right now I am not good at all. I am so frustrated.
I hope it all gets better or I won't want to teach at all.
I start teaching tomorrow. Dr. Malloy said something about how you become a real teacher when you stop focusing on what you are doing and start focusing on the students. Let's just bypass the trip there and be at that point. I have really good plans for what to do and then I get up there and I am so nervous that I forget what I am teaching. I can't wait till this changes.
I wish I could fast forward a couple of weeks to the point where I feel confident as a teacher.
So I have been going over and over my unit plan. I will type in the corrections and print out the lesson plans again. I am starting two sections earlier so I should be comfortable with the class by the time I Get to my unit. I'm so nervous excited.
So I went into my highschool on the first day of class last week. I also went in Monday. I feel so much better being there from the beginning. I am actually getting excited about teaching. WE are talking about class rules and stuff. I am excited planning what I will do with my own classroom.
