Tomorrow I will be a teacher. For 42 glorious moments I will get to be a teacher. I will be teaching a lesson for one of my other graduate classes and recording it. I have to hike all the way out to IUP to do it, but it will be worth it to see my cooperating teacher again, see the school that I took my first steps as a real teacher in, and most importantly, be with students for the first time in over nine months. It has been too long.
So just one question... why am I nervous?
Is it the situation? Yes it could be. I am basically abducting this class for one period and using it for my own purposes. The lesson is approximately grade level appropriate so it is not a total waste, but god bless my cooperating teacher for letting me abduct her classroom. The students do not know me, and I don't know them. Hopefully my lessons is at least somewhat engaging.
I teaching basic point of view, first, second, and third person. I have some funny you tube videos and commercials, some funny passages the students will rewrite, point of view charades which should hopefully be fairly fun to watch, and then a good culminating assessment where the students rewrite a journal entry in a different perspective.
And yet, I am nervous.
I know I shouldn't be. It kills me everyday to read all your blogs about the exciting things you're doing with the content of this class. I should be chomping at the bit!
Either way tomorrow by 8 am this will all have transpired. I will be in my car hopefully both reinvigorated by my brief 42 minutes and crushed by the realization that I am driving back to my cubicle. For right now, I just wish I wasn't... nervous.
Nervous is good. I still get nervous, even after teaching in the same district for five years. To me, being nervous as a teacher means you care. And, for what it's worth, I imagine your lesson will be quite engaging because you have an array of activities planned to target a variety of learners and ensure understanding. Best of luck!
ReplyDeleteI hope it went well :) It can be nerve-wracking to enter a situation like that...like, what are they going to think when they see me? Are they going to participate? What crazy things are going to transpire? (because you know at least one crazy thing ALWAYS transpires, especially when being observed or videotaped). Anyway, you'll have to recap us! It's definitely a unique situation, and it's probably quite a challenge to be asked to do "teaching things" for graduate study when you don't have a classroom, but you seem to be right in step with everything, so know that it'll come sooner than you think and you are DEFINITELY ready :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with Laura! I lie awake the night before the first day of school every year. If I'm doing something new (teaching a new novel or poem or using a new technology) I have butterflies during the entire class. That feeling means that you are invested!
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