Christine, Wondering

Random Musings of a Human Becoming

Friday, July 27, 2007

End of Week 1

Well, whaddaya know. I'm sick.

On Thursday morning I woke up with a slight sore throat, and despite deep misgivings, I dismissed it as dehydration and set out to drink as much water as possible to make it go away. Ha, yeah right. It got worse all day yesterday, and has now (Friday afternoon) developed into a full-on cold - sneezing, sniffling, coughing, and a raging burning sore throat of the sort that leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Yeesh.

On top of that, prac has started so I'm flat out. And . . . my Monday-Wednesday co-operating teacher has had to have a knee reconstruction and the Thursday-Friday one is on leave briefly, so I have this idiot of a relief teacher for the first two weeks. She’s really old-school so I don’t like her style at all, and despite being told repeatedly by me and the supervisor, she seems to have no idea what the prac is for. She wants me to have beautifully presented lesson plans which I carry out exactly to plan with no deviations (we’re supposed to use our plans as our own personal working documents with as many scribbles as we like, and we’re supposed to change our lesson plans on the spot if needs be, because flexibility is the reality of teaching). She keeps moaning that we prac students can’t possibly learn to be teachers if we’re not strictly required to do everything perfectly.

Um, maybe we’ll learn to be real teachers, and perhaps we won’t kill ourselves with overwork in the process?

My supervisor from uni knows what’s going on and she’s been very supportive, so at least I know I won’t be unfairly treated by the woman without having anyone step in and tell her where to get off. And the prac is only pass/borderline/fail, so I’m fine – no matter how much she whinges about this irrelevant stuff, I’m a damn good teacher and she knows it already, so she cannot legitimately do anything other than pass me, even if she only gives me satisfactories on the informal report.

By the time I start my six-week *real* prac, which is graded, the two normal teachers will be back. I get along with both of them excellently and I like their styles, so I’ll do fine. Eventually.

My lessons so far have gone brilliantly, though – it’s stupid niggly things that this teacher is determined to make me feel small about (she has that stupid tone of voice that some adults use when they’ve spent most of their career talking to children, and can no longer imagine that anyone younger than about 40 is not a child – I feel like a disappointing high school student every time she opens her mouth). I have a great rapport with the kids, my lesson planning is flawless from a pedagogical perspective, and I know what I’m doing. I just wish she’d let me get on with doing it, rather than subjecting me to a ten-minute lecture about why I shouldn’t cross out and change the title of my lesson plan!

I feel bloody awful. I probably won’t get much chance to blog during the week for the time being, but I’ll try to update on the weekend as much as possible.

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