"First Impressions"

I still feel the ache of nervousness. It’s terrifying and exciting to be here, finally. To finally find myself at the end of my comfort zone. No amount of training and theory seems to help, though, I still feel unprepared for all this. The only thing that will help me now is experience, and the only way to get experience is to plunge forward and simply get in front of my classroom and teach. I have people here to help push me along, and watch my back as I do so, but that doesn’t seem to make it any easier.

I teach my first lesson in another day: my first real lesson in front of a full set of classes throughout the day. I find myself sabotaging my own confidence with doubt and worries. I know what my capabilities are, and how I’ve taught before in more controlled settings. There’s a teacher beneath this nervous wreck and I just need to find a way to stop over thinking it all.

My mentor teacher gave me some good advice. This is a group of middle school students so all I need to remember is that “I’m the smartest guy in the room.” It’s good advice, but we’ll see if I can just push through how I feel and teach like I know I’m meant to.

My first impressions of this student teaching have been mixed. Although this is probably more due to the fact that I’ve had a lot of changes in my personal schedule very suddenly, I’ve found myself struggling to keep my energy up between teaching all day, working on homework and lesson plans in the evening, and my general sense of stress and worry. I suspect this will all change once I begin to get more into my groove and solidify my confidence a bit more.

My experience has probably been a little more different than some of the other student teachers because my cooperating teacher has already asked me to teach. It was one of those lessons that went badly at first, but as I got towards the end of the day, I began to get the hang of what I was trying to do with it. 6^th Period got the best version of me. My first class could have gone better. I felt like I did more lecturing than engaging students. Eventually I let the students get on with their writing, and some of them got a good head start on writing their essays. Some of the other students who were either less interested or struggling to understand got left behind. I know there’s a lot of ways I can improve what I did, but this is all practice after all. Still, it feels a little sad to subject students to substandard teaching just for my sake, doesn’t it?

Maybe it’s just so surprising right now because I shouldn’t really be teaching yet, based on the way they’ve tried to structure this new “Clinical Practice” program. I don’t know if that says a lot about my cooperating teacher’s confidence in me, or that I just ended up in the wrong place. I didn’t feel ready to teach just yet, but at the same time, I don’t think I’d ever feel ready if I didn’t have someone there to push me.

All in all, it was a good week. I learned a great deal in a short period of time. I’m learning strategies through observation, and through my own trial and error in my lessons. I’m finding ways to fill the discrepancy between the way I believed things might be with my theory classes, and the realities of teaching a group of students. I have a long way to go, but I am having fun.