So, I know this has been a long time coming, and I'm sorry. I'm going to do my best to squeeze two weeks of a very, very steep learning curve into a readable post while giving a realistic impression about how I'm doing. It would be very easy to sell myself short or sound overconfident (and probably also easy to do both at once), but I don't want to do either. Part of my personal challenge these past few weeks has been to suss out how I actually feel about being here, and hard as it may be, objectivity is paramount.
My first week was pretty boring, in all honesty. Firstly, the freshmen were all on a ski trip so the class load I was shadowing was basically cut in half. Secondly, it was a weird week where the new semester hadn't quite started yet, but grades had been due for the old one, so teachers were supposed to teach classes without having any graded assignments, which doesn't make any sense at all. But it was helpful to get the lay of the land before I was required to do it all on my own, so I did appreciate that particular opportunity my week of student teaching provided me.
It was also helpful to find out which courses I would be teaching and have some time to wrap my head around them before I needed to start teaching. I have freshmen for Speaking as well as Literature and Writing, both of which are exactly what they sound like. Speaking is basically a conversational English class, and Literature and Writing involves reading literature, talking about literature, and beginning to learn how to structure simple essays. I have a junior Writing class, which will cover more practical types of writing in English. I'll be teaching them how to write an application letter, a cover letter, a resume, things like that. Academic writing is covered elsewhere. My senior class is called Coursebook. The primary objective of that class is to prepare them for the massively important state leaving exams, the written part of which they will take in March. So for the next 6 weeks we will be drilling grammar, proofreading, and different styles of writing. After the written portion of the test, we'll be focused on getting them ready for the speaking part which doesn't happen until June, but will require them to speak at length on one of about 20 possible topics covering an array of areas. I don't have a clue about how we're going to work on that part, but I don't have to worry about that right now. Right now I have to make sure they can write a solid piece, use articles correctly, transform words, and complete open cloze exercises, which is at least more objective, if not any easier.
So after a week of following Ben around and killing time in the English Department office with nothing to do, I finally got in front of a classroom on Tuesday. By that point, I wasn't even worried about whether or not I was going to like teaching, I just wanted to start and be able to stop imagining possible scenarios. And it wasn't that bad! There were absolutely some moments where I thought "what on Earth was I thinking, coming here to teach high school without any training at all? I'm crazy." But there were also moments where I thought: "This isn't that bad. Maybe I'll be able to pull this off!" So could things have gone better? Yes, they could have. However, they also could have gone much, much worse. And I can say I've done it, and there's no way I'm going to get worse with experience. It can only go up from here.
I'm not a master teacher. I was clear about that in the interview, and I've been clear about it here, although not to the students. I'm going to make mistakes, and throw lessons away, and not be able to deal with problems the most effective way possible. There's just no getting around that. But I am willing to learn. I want to do the best I can, both for the students and for myself. It's going to take work. It's probably also going to take some tears and frustration, but I knew that before I left home. I knew this was going to be a challenge, and there was always a possibility I wouldn't like it. That's still a possibility. But I could also end up loving it. All I can do now is ask questions, try my hardest, put my best foot forward, and fake it 'til I make it.
