Full time teaching! -Week 5

Week…week…holy cow what week is it!?! Time flies when you’re having fun, running exhausted around a gym of twenty plus students, and trying to get your edTPA rolling! This week, like most, seems to be a blur of every type of experience I could think up. The success and the messes continue. As my first week of officially being the head teacher, I had a fair number of new experiences contributing to the craziness. I expected the transition to be fairly seamless considering I’ve had a prominent role in many of the activities and lessons since week two. However, I soon found out my assumption was more of mis-assumption.

Classroom control. That was the theme I sang in my reflections this week. Suddenly with Mr. Park in the background, the gym was an open playing field and the students were anxious to explore. Little did they know Miss Matson had a different ideal in mind: guided exploration with clear boundaries and protocols to abide by. As the first few classes began with an atmosphere bordering chaos more than control, I quickly realized my expectations would have to be voiced loud and clear and over and over again. At first my frustration boiled a bit after each lesson. I wondered why all of the sudden I seemed to have to be cracking down on the discipline not just once but continuously throughout my lesson. Didn’t my students know I wanted them to spend the majority of the time playing and engrossed in the activities? Then it dawned on me. I am not Mr. Park and even though I have been teaching, I had never stated my personal expectations for them. These students were simply doing what comes naturally to all children, testing the boundaries of something new set before them. Mr. Park could present himself casually to the students and simply give them the “look” to correct behavior. I on the other hand had not built up such a repertoire with the students to do so.     

Thus began the process of creating a learning environment, wholly my own. Every lesson I laid out my expectations and protocols. This included anything from where equipment should be during times of transition and instruction to appropriate behaviors during group discussions. At first I felt like the most horribly doctorial teacher ever. It’s not my personality type to want control or firmly enforce obedience. But I realized we had some ground work to do, and it was imperative for the safety as well as functionality of our classroom that these things be established. Some classes caught on quicker than others. I have to continually remember, although I’ve known these expectations they are brand new to my students. Grace should not be neglected. The goal is that these expectations and procedures become ingrained in the learners so we can spend more time learning and less time disciplining! It’s feels a similar to my discipline I receive as a child of God. At first its rather unpleasant and far from enjoyable, but in the end produces a wonderful harvest. (IPTS 4I, 4J)

Another thing I am increasingly growing proficient in is adapting my lessons…continuously! Because I get to teach the same lesson multiple times, I am offered an opportunity to evaluate its effectiveness and modify based on outcome data and student response. Teaching is a job requiring constant observation, evaluate, and correction of practices and lessons. At the end of the week I asked Mr. Park for feedback regarding any weakness that stood out to him in my teaching. His answer surprised me. First he said if there was something I should be doing differently I would already know because he is not one to hold back. Secondly, he said that although not all my lessons were flawless, I had actually been doing exactly what I should be in response. I was self-critiquing and continuously adjusting things to get them right. Great teachers know how to think on their feet and pun fully intended: I am always on my feet. (IPTS 3D)