Throwing Chalk: diary of a trainee teacher

So as I lay in bed last night not sleeping, but not crying, but not happy, I thought that rationally there are 3 paths forward.

1. Give up completely on this stupid teaching idea.
2. Tell Bev what I think about his mentorship and find a new college to teach at. Ha.
3. Try and just carry on.

I must admit I was tempted to put option 3 as - find someone else at Porringo to teach with - find a different subject to teach. Sociology? I.T.? English is surely done to death. It's all misery round here, I'm afraid.

I will now reflect on the A2 lesson.

Cohort = a surprisingly bright bunch, too chatty, split between Asian guys and generally white girls and a couple of not very attentive Asian girls. About 15 in the class, I'd say. All the usual 17-19 years of age.

General thoughts = My lesson plan was well thought out, I had almost planned to not finish it - I don't know how *proper* that is, but I wasn't entirely sure of the timing so I put in more work than could ever hope to be done. As Bev had said, 2 hours isn't long enough to do a full mock-exam including a writing exercise and a commentary. It wasn't, especially as we took longer than expected going through a questionaire I had devised at the beginning. Bev had told me that I would need to read everything out and go through everything & that ended up taking up more time as well. I feel that when he gives me this sort of last minute advice or suggestions for changing the lesson plan, I should take it on board and try to do some change to my plans. It seems a) polite, b) that he knows what he's talking about & c) his passive-aggressive commentary suggests that if I don't do as I'm told I'll simply fail. Thanks Simon Cowell, you've been a great help.

Topic = Advertising again. As I had the material (the photocopied holiday brochure from the GCSE class a couple of months ago). I used the course book to come up with a list of linguistic terms and set that as an exercise. Oh, I'm flagging here on writing this. I don't have the energy any more. The motivation. Let's just say - that then a creative reimagining of a different advertising thing. That's all. I thought it was useful. I'd used some of the material last year with an A2 language class. Was the lesson perfect? No, I doubt it, but no one complained. And actually, I had learnt from mistakes there and improved on it.

Effectiveness of teaching, training and learning = There was overall enjoyment and a great deal of new points came out in the discussion. There was too much chitter-chatter from the girls - but having seen Bev's session with them I wasn't too displeased as they weren't as bad as they were with him. Ha. Little did I know.

Ok. Stop a second. One of his later criticisms was that "Carly was texting all the time." I caught her with her phone, told her not to do it, told her to put it away. I didn't scream at her, but I never saw her do it again. So maybe she was doing it behind my back. If I don't see it, how can I be blamed for that? If I had seen someone texting in his lesson, I would have told them to stop. Not saved it till the end. And if I told him - it'd be in the sense - "By the way - Carly was texting - you need to have a word with her." Not. "She was texting. That's your fault, that is."

..........................................................................................

There has been no swearing in this blog yet. But put some in there. Consonant, vowel, consonant, consonant. And add a "you!" on the end. Thanks.

I can't carry on going through this lesson as I'm too emotionally wrought.

It was good, I thought. It wasn't perfect. I will never be perfect. I went with the flow of the lesson so the plan didn't get completely finished. I'll skip to the meat of the *praise sandwich*.

Working with your Tutor/Mentor: do you agree with the feedback from the observer?

"Well they enjoyed it..." Thanks, Bev. Thanks. And you didn't enjoy any of it. Any of it that wasn't exactly like you would do. "I don't want to say you've got to teach like me. I'm not going to criticise another teacher's teaching style..." Hang on, isn't that exactly what you are doing?

• The timing wasn't perfect.
• The students didn't do enough writing
• Someone was texting and there was chatter
• It wasn't a high enough level for them
• You need to read everything out because they're (conversely to the previous) not bright enough to understand it unless you read it out.
• The Asian lads in particular won't understand it.
• Then it's just a fog of me nodding and taking it.

Not fighting back. Other than the occasional, "I don't want to disagree but... " I don't think anyone can say I was confrontational. Apart from my face which was probably a mix of horror and confusion. And sadness and through in a bit of despair.

Constructive comments for development?

You know, there were. There are areas for improvement, but I give me a C+ or even a B- for that class. My first time teaching them. He gave me a fail. An outright fail. Wrong after wrong after wrong.

If it was right - technically, I'll tell you what - it wasn't NICE. It didn't feel NICE. It just wasn't KIND. Perhaps that's my problem. I didn't realise I entered such a bad ass world. Perhaps I can retire and become a stockbroker. Something less prone to harsh criticism. Or a social worker. Hmmm. I've not started and I want to give up. Ba.

Final reflection = To have to just sit there and listen to that level of *criticism*. In my mind it's just - *take that shit* was not good or healthy for me. And definitely not normal. Not that I haven't taken criticism in my time, but I'm usually considered to be quite good at the things I do. I try. I put the work in, I have some talents. It's not usually an unrelenting pile of ordure being poured over my head. Of course, I'm sure an unbiased observer wouldn't see it like that, so that's my problem. His points had validity - but it still comes down to me feeling this bad. Not enjoying. Not wanting to continue and not seeing how I usefully can continue. Where are the gaps in the GCSE curriculum for me to fit into? Where are the gaps in the A2 curriculum if I am not to be trusted so close to *exam time*. And it's always exam time.

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 12:35 Comments