Life as a teacher
So I have been on practicum the past week and will be this week as well. It's fun and exhausting and stressful and overwhelming all at once. I am only teaching one lesson a day solo (math 7) and so at least that has been manageable. But let me tell you, as I will say many many times in my life, teachers are really not recognized for the amount of work they do and how important it is. But yes, so far things are going well but I will be happy to be back at UBC in a week's time. These days are really tiring!
On Thursday I faced a challenge when my sponsor teacher was sick and didn't come in. At 8:25, 10 minutes before class started I was informed that they couldn't get in a TOC either and that I was the teacher that day. So I taught the whole day - ALONE. The day actually went really well overall and I guess it was a credit to me that teachers who came up to check on me and make sure things were alright didn't stay any longer than 5 minutes. My kids were really great and excited for me to be teaching. I did lots of games to make the day as fun for them as possible.
That all being said, me teaching alone is actually super illegal bc I am not certified yet by the BC college of teachers. My sponsor teacher was pretty mad they put me in that position although apparently it does happen all the time. If anything had happened, the school could have been majorly screwed. But nothing did happen and I didn't screw anything up too majorly and had my first real "teacher" day. I felt quite accomplished at the end of that day.
But now to return to marking and touching up lesson plans for tomorrow....oh the joy of Sunday as a teacher.
On Thursday I faced a challenge when my sponsor teacher was sick and didn't come in. At 8:25, 10 minutes before class started I was informed that they couldn't get in a TOC either and that I was the teacher that day. So I taught the whole day - ALONE. The day actually went really well overall and I guess it was a credit to me that teachers who came up to check on me and make sure things were alright didn't stay any longer than 5 minutes. My kids were really great and excited for me to be teaching. I did lots of games to make the day as fun for them as possible.
That all being said, me teaching alone is actually super illegal bc I am not certified yet by the BC college of teachers. My sponsor teacher was pretty mad they put me in that position although apparently it does happen all the time. If anything had happened, the school could have been majorly screwed. But nothing did happen and I didn't screw anything up too majorly and had my first real "teacher" day. I felt quite accomplished at the end of that day.
But now to return to marking and touching up lesson plans for tomorrow....oh the joy of Sunday as a teacher.