First Student Teaching Thoughts

I've survived my first student teaching assignment - which was at a local Catholic School here in town. It was a middle school and a high school combined, so some of the kids looked really young, but I was only assigned to the HS students. I was assigned to three different teachers, and three different classes. A year 11 Economics class, a Year 10 advanced Social Studies class, and a year 10 remedial Social Studies Class. PE/Health is supposed to be my primary teaching subjects but there's a shortage of placements in town - maybe next placement I'll get to play PE teacher.

Who said Tigers don't like water?

It went well - really well. All my reviews were glowing (okay, sorry....had to brag just a bit). Of course there's some things that I need to work on - some things that will become a bit more second nature after I spend a bit more time in the classroom, but all in all....I was comfortable in the classroom. I knew that I'd be a good teacher, and I found myself really enjoying it. What I wasn't prepared for was how long I would spend on my lesson plans, and research what I was supposed to be teaching. I kept going back and rewriting them, all b/c there's this pressure to have the ultimate lesson b/c you know that everything you do is being evaluated.

Luca and his friend Ryan

Some of the many things I learned on my first practicum...

• The school - under resourced. OMG...people still use overhead projectors? I'm hoping that not all NZ schools are like this.
• Small school - good students, very friendly close knit staff. Generally an older staff, so I'm thinking unless someone retires chances are I won't be working here anytime soon.
• Catholic School - wow, this was an expierence! Mass on Fridays at lunch, and prayer every morning, and teachers had a 'reflection' time during the morning meetings. At first I found this to be a waste of time but after a few weeks, I really enjoyed it and it meant that the staff were quite close.
• Social Studies....LOVE IT. Economics, hate it.
• Helped out with supervising a school dance ("don't let the students get too close"), ran with the students during an all school 5K road race, attended a union meeting - teachers paid time off to go to it, watched canoe polo team, and generally enjoyed being involved in a secondary school community.
• Some kids were little sh*ts, but that was to be expected - no biggie. Some were great. Same goes for the teachers...ha ha. No they weren't that bad, but some were just so-so - others really connected with the students and were more inspiring.
• It'll be a lot easier when I have my own students, my own classroom.

Early dismissals, paid teacher union meetings, school holidays...Yeah, this is going to be sweet! one down, two to go.

I celebrated my 31st bday during the school practicum. Had a good day at school, and came home to a slow cooker meal, and took a walk with the boys along the river. Also got some awesome flowers and gift basket from Grandma Loomis and Dad and Fran delivered to my door. Yee-haw!