Horse the on

One interesting thing I have found in my education as a teacher is that I may have never had a time in my life where my self-confidence has been so erratic. Things change quite quickly, from plunging into a deep dark abyss of doubt, to discovering all the beautiful fish in depths as I explore.

That is to say today was a good day, with progress, and an obvious path to improvement. I was really thrown into the deep end on Monday, doing two types of lessons that I was not familiar with (handwriting and spelling) and pulling them off with few problems. Today I consolidated that and included maths in the fold. I also picked up a few of the more subtle control mechanisms and ways to direct feedback to students to increase their learning.

Also, three hours of that Sunday work (and a lot of background thought and scribbles) have been transformed into the pride of my day. That was what I put into my Science Unit plan over the weekend. I had shown it to my associate teacher at the end of my “wrung-out” Monday, after which she made her usual excited noises (she uses the same excessively enthusiastic praise on me as she does with the children). But in the morning, I found the AP looking at it with her and the AP was saying nice things about it too. And then I bumped into the principal in the photocopy room and she also mentioned that she had heard how wonderful my unit plan was. (Gee, that could be a good precedent to any attempt to get a job there! However I don’t think they are looking for anyone :-( )

Yesterday evening was highly productive despite the distraction of watching The Others (which was pretty good). I contemplated how I would put together the Statistical Investigation unit (which had already been written, I just need to adapt it and bring it to life). It seems to be fairly easy to manipulate.

Those two units will comprise about the 16 hours vegetarian “meat” of my practicum. So in other words, with the mastery of the bread and butter of maths and reading, the lettuce of P.E. and the tomato sauce of the nice lessons such as News and Reflection on the Week, I now have a far more appetising sandwich of a practicum.

Tomorrow I will strangely lose all responsibilities as three sets of circumstances prevent me from doing anything (hard to explain but never-de-mind) but then on Thursday, I do the whole day till 3pm, and also the Friday which I will have the nice reliever in to assist for some things (should I need it). I met the lad, or rather the spritely gent, who happens to be a former principal with experience handling the rascal with the wicked mood that also happen to be in my brood.

As so it was, that a Tuesday has brought me “back on the horse”.