A New Appreciation for Teachers

As always, I have a lot of respect for teachers. Their role in any given student's life is very elaborate and often misunderstood until you spend a day in their shoes. I have gotten a chance to observe the complex layers of teaching for a whole semester, from a teacher 's perspective, and a couple of weeks ago..the unexpected happened. I had spoken with my teaching partner on Tuesday, but when I stepped into the classroom on Thursday I was surprised to see another woman at her desk, a substitute teacher.

I happened to get there a couple minutes late, and I was welcomed with the usual chatter among the students. I walked over to the desk to introduce myself to the substitute teacher who was nervously thumbing through some lesson plans. She explained that there were worksheets for the students, but she hadn't been through the material in so long and could not remember any of it. I looked through the material and quickly referenced an Algebra book to confirm a couple of quick things and said that I could teach the lesson if she wouldn't mind helping with the administrative things.

I had one thing on my side, and that was that the students at least recognize and know who I am, so they warmed up to me teaching the class a little easier. First hour was a little rough, trying to get attendance down to the office, and trying to teach the lesson when half of the students didn't have books or pencils. I ended up having students come up to the board and do problems, and I would help them if they were nervous or afraid of getting something wrong. It is incredibly hard to maintain a balance of being stern and encouraging at the same time. That day made me step out of my traditional role as a 'teaching fellow' who is normally there for encouragement and support. I wouldn't mind doing this, but I would have liked to prepare a little more for it.

As the hours went on, the substitute and I got better and better managing the students. She worked on making sure the attendance sheet we passed around was filled out, and I taught the lessons. By third hour, I had the students partnering up and doing problems and then I would randomly choose any student to write their answer on the board. That worked well because each person had the responsibility of making sure their partner knew how to do the problem in case they were called. It seemed to encourage some of the students, but others did take the opportunity to form groups 'larger' than intended which was somewhat distracting. It was a little bit annoying that the students are allowed to carry ipods around. While the students were working, I would hear traces of music and I would have to go and make them turn off their music. Its amazing that all these highschoolers seems to have some sort of technological device at all times whether its a cell phone, an ipod..PSP..its always something!

Overall, it was a great learning experience for me. Its incredibly hard to teach a diverse range of students. Some of them know the material and are bored, then others are barely keeping up and need extra help. And when they are not given the proper attention, they become disruptive and time never seems to be on your side. When it gets down to it, I see that conventional methods do not always address the varying range of ability in the classroom and its extremely hard for one person to maximize any given student's absorption of material. I would be curious to do more research on different approaches to secondary schooling across the world.