Stressed out wannabe

[sarahandcocoa]

I will start with something positive. I've spent the past three hours writing some 'extended chapters' for my novel, whereby my heroine goes down to London for the Christmas feasting and attends a masque at the banqueting hall I visited last time I was there. I've made a promising start on this and, with just one other chapter to slot into a later

Comments

[kitty_cat_gemma]

There's no such thing as a 'perfect' lesson! I think that when you start out you just need to focus on being comfortable in front of a class and doing a decent lesson where the kids learn, then when that's sorted you can add the frills. Some lessons are good and some are awful but talking about teaching is so much easier than actually doing it and if your uni tutor doesn't realise that he needs to take a little trip back to the classroom. :p

Plus you need to get to know a class before you can get them to do a lot of the fun stuff, or in some cases get them to do anything! I've had the 'you'll get to know them and they'll get used to you and then it'll all be better' pep-talk off several different people this term and they've been proved right (and now it's time to go through it all again with year 9 lol) Just don't be too hard on yourself at first :)

[sarahandcocoa]

Arwwww, thanks Gem! I don't think Gary has unrealistic expectations of us, but he did make it clear the other day when we were doing fake job applications that he considers the Nottingham History PGCE cohort to be 'the best' History teachers in the country. He says we are sought after. All the History teachers I have met who have come from the course have been really amazing - it's just big boots to fill! I'm sure we'll all do it, though. I'm glad I picked the History PGCE now. Can't imagine myself being an English teacher.

[kitty_cat_gemma]

Yeah we get that from some of our course tutors too but it's all about keeping a sense of perspective. That's where being in school helps because you get a more realistic view and when things do go horribly wrong there's usually someone around who can help you see the funny side.