Blog Prompt: Teaching and Teaching Role

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I am always excited about teaching. I love being up there sharing what I know with ready ears and minds, and even those reluctant learners. Every student wants to learn something, and I want to be there to do so. To be a teacher, one has to always prepare and know their students. Unfortunately, we only got to see students for a few weeks. However, I think all of us can agree that we still learned a lot about those students even with the short time we were there. We got to see those who struggled more than others; we got to see who spoke up a lot and who stayed quiet. We got to see fantastic groups of learners who accomplished something in the time we were there.

When I first started the teaching program at Rhode Island College, my biggest worry was classroom behavior management. This was one of my worst nightmares that my classroom would be unmanageable and I would be flustered in trying methods to calm my students down. After being in the classroom for a little while now, I feel more confident about my abilities to keep my classroom a safe learning environment and a productive one as well. I think I have gotten much better with my teacher voice and that I can read a classroom better than I was able to in years past.

My biggest fear now is making sure curriculum requirements are met without losing my creativity. I also worry about time management. I thought I was doing okay with that, but twice this year I encountered lesson time miscalculations. Both of the lessons my fellow teacher candidates and I did ran too short, and we had to think quickly to fill up time. It was terrifying both times and I did not want students to see this worry.

I think that both of my fears are always going to be challenged. There will be some good days and some bad days. One part of teaching that is both exciting and terrifying is that you may never know what happens. You know your students, you know your school, but something can come up. There could be a new student, there could be a vacation coming up, a surprise observation, a teacher conference, etc. the day always changes. I think, with time, a teacher learns to face these challenges and learn from them, and prepare for them. Already I saw improvement in the way I teach, as I mentioned about classroom management. In the middle school, I found a method to keep noise level down with a simple hand movement and a gentle “shh”. Had this happened two year earlier, I may have been more vocal about asking students to keep the noise level down.

I am very excited about student teaching. It will be the first time that I will be teaching on my own. Am I afraid? A little; I think a better term would be nervous though. It can be, like I said, this will be the first time I am teaching alone. I will still have their main teacher though, which I am grateful for. Otherwise, I think I will be good. I am ready.