Ok, I admit, I thought I had this teaching thing in the bag. The past few days have shown me that I was very much mistaken. I have discovered that I am not as prepared to teach as I thought.
I'm finally able to sit and really THINK about what went wrong this week and at the end of last week. I realize what it is. Some of it stems from my having seen how my CCT interacts with the students, and picking up on that. What I failed to do, I think, was establish myself as an authority first.
Some of you may have heard the old adage: "Don't smile until winter break." I think it applies here, for what I didn't do. I got too into having fun. Too into answering their questions about me or chatting with them, and not enough time making them see me as someone to be obeyed and respected. I won't go into what happened on Friday in detail, but it threw me for a loop. I've been dwelling on it all weekend and into this week as I tried to figure out where I went wrong. And where I can improve my image and my authority over the class. It's strange to think that in just two weeks I'll be stepping out as the full-time teacher. My CCT may not even be in the classroom most of the time. But before that happens I need to get a handle on controlling the students. On Classroom Management.
I never thought I'd find myself having a problem with this.
I think that's what comes as such as shock to me. I shouldn't be. I always thought I was going to be something of a disciplinarian. And yet one class kind of walked all over me. My CCT had some really awesome suggestions though, and I'm going to try to implement those.
See, I think part of the problem is I get so caught up in teaching that I forget to think about the management. I get so caught up in getting the lesson across that I forget about the rest of it.
Which kind of is a pretty good segway into my next thing.
Today I taught a lesson that I thought would be pretty easy. But it felt like it wasn't. Not easy at all. Proportional figures. Similar figures. Stuff that's a pretty basic element of Geometry, and it was stumping the first two classes. Confounding them. They didn't get it at all. I had to ask myself honestly. "Is it me?" My CCT offered to teach the next class, and did it her way. She seemed to have better luck. I'm not sure why, because when she left the classroom to go take care of something, the kids began to voice that they didn't get it at all. Then I tried to teach it again fifth period, taking into account the changes to the way she taught it. The moment the class began to comment that they weren't getting it, that they didn't understand it, something happened to my confidence.
It went right out the window. I lost it after they said they couldn't understand it. I'm grateful that my CCT recognized what happened for what it was, and took over then. I wasn't shaking because at the time, I didn't recognize it for what it was. It was a blow to my confidence as a teacher, plain and simple. I had never had a lesson I taught be so universally....un-mastered. It shocked me. But as I talked to my CCT, I realized that it was a hard lesson, and all teachers face this from time to time. In fact, it lead to our first change to the lesson plans we had outlined for the week. We're going to rearrange the week so that the students can do a worksheet on it tomorrow, instead of a new lesson. It may not delay their quiz at all.
Still feel a little shaken, as far as my teaching ability goes, but thinking about it, considering what went wrong and thinking about what I can do to fix it...helps a lot. Still, the past week has given me a lot to think about and consider.
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