Home run or strike out?

I realize that it's been quite some time since I've posted; with taking six classes, TA-ing Monday-Friday, and working four jobs I'm pretty much using more time than I even have available. Plus! This past week I began my unit with 2nd hour on Monday and 3rd hour on Thursday. After hardly sleeping through the night Sunday night, I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed ready for my lesson with second hour (mind you this is sarcastic and I was actually terrified). I've learned that all my past experience with kids babysitting, nannying, and tutoring has really helped make me feel comfortable being in front of the kids and I find that what I most worry about is how much influence I have over these young minds. It's absolutely terrifying how some students hang on nearly every word I say and how much influence I have over their lives and minds; but this is also an absolutely amazing feeling. I cannot put into words how amazing this week was for me, every day I love teaching more. People always say that it's the "ahhh-haa" moments that are some of the most memorable and rewarding and after hearing my students have these moments this week I have to agree with them. It truly gives me butterflies to hear my students say "ohhhhhh! That makes so much sense now!". And just the fact that in my first week of teaching I was able to give many students moments like this is just mind blowing (I can't help but be a little proud of myself).

That being said, this does NOT mean that the week went flawlessly. Monday and Tuesday went very very well, and this was a big bonus seeing as Tuesday I was observed by the College of Ed. Needless to say, I was more nervous/terrified going in to teach Tuesday than I was Monday. But I also came out of Tuesday with more confirmation that this exactly where I'm suppose to be right now and I'm doing exactly what I'm suppose to be doing. The first thing my COE coordinator said to me in our meeting after my lesson was, "You're going to make a great teacher". Just hearing that from someone who's been in the profession for so long was so great and encouraging. I'm so hard on myself when it comes to my teaching that I can convince myself of things being much more terrible than they actually are. I ended up getting a voice mail from my coordinator later in the day telling me how great my lesson was again, and saying he couldn't get my lesson out of his head. Isn't that what we want from our "students" and ourselves? Our lessons to be so great that our students go home and talk about them to their parents or apply them to aspects outside of our classroom...

What made Tuesday even better was how great the students were and how receptive they (typically) are to the lessons I give. They're so willing to learn and interact with me and are not afraid to ask questions and I really can't ask for a better group of students to try out all my crazy activities on and begin my teaching career.

After Tuesday's lesson came Wednesday lesson; which I went into knowing I had a TON of material to cover and fingers crossed I'd have time to cover it all. Sadly, that lesson didn't go as smoothly as Tuesday's and because I spent majority of the period covering the beginning vocab, this left little time at the end of the lesson for the more complicated portion of the section. I only had a few minutes left in the period and quickly gave a simple example of the end material with little explanation. This proved to be fatal mistake. I knew at the end of that lesson that students were NOT comfortable with the material and did not come away from that lesson with an understanding of what I wanted them to. This is where the idea that teachers need to be 'flexible' came into play. I decided that what was best for my students was to recover the material (mostly the end of the lesson) again the next class period and give them two days to do the homework. It was when I was giving the lesson for a second time that I had nearly every student saying "Ohhhhhhhh! I get it now!" and though it was frustrating for students to be so confused on the homework assignment and lesson initially and it was frustrating for me that I was unable to give a clear, precise, and involving lesson the first time around this really was a good learning experience about being flexible when lesson planning. Being able to cover the material a second time, a day later, was also really helpful for me to get an understanding of where my students got tripped up and come up with a different way to present the material.

Moral of the story: though a lesson might strike out the first time it's presented, this is an important step in the learning process of becoming a teacher and it's important that we're able to be flexible and pay attention to our students needs. You never know, the same material presented in a different way might just be a home run the next time around.