29-10-14
The day started off hot and smoggy, it’s really hitting into summer time. I got in early today and started up the air conditioner to try and keep the classroom at a comfortable temperature, then I made sure my laptop was all set up with the documents, webpages and video’s I would be using. This has become a part of my morning routine now.
Getting to know other teachers from the school has been a huge blessing, particularly getting to know a graduate teacher who is coming to the end of her first year of teaching. This experience has made me realise the support that teachers provide for each other in this school. With such a family atmosphere it’s no wonder the staff are full of smiles and positive attitudes.
The day ran smoothly for the most part, and I felt that I am improving on my time management in keeping the flow of the day. However, during the final session in science today, although I knew the content, was well prepared and planned the class became chaos. I feel that it was mostly because I spent too long re-addressing behaviour which caused students to switch off, and the session lost momentum. I began to worry about the time and was scared of not making it through the lesson, instead of stopping and perhaps doing something entirely different I dragged the lesson on. We got there in the end. Though I realise that it could have been a lot better I had of addressed my expectations more clearly at the beginning. Had students positioned better and followed through on my directions. By the end of the day I felt like a little bit of a failure, though I realise that this is something I will learn from and use to improve my practice. It was very comforting to talk with my mentor and another teacher as they shared how they too have had complete failures of lessons and they have just had to take on board what went wrong, why and how to avoid it in the future.
I’m looking forward to a fresh start tomorrow morning.
