Life of a teacher reflection

How did you cope/manage to complete life of a teacher?

I managed to complete the three days of “Life of a teacher” without any challenges, the way I did this was I made sure I knew all the students names before doing my first day, I believe that in order for you as a teacher to gain the respect of the students you must first show them respect and the simple act of knowing their names not only promotes a sense of comfort for them but it will also result in gaining the students respect. When completing all three days it was imperative that I knew all the schedule of the class, when they had Zulu classes or PE for example so the students wouldn’t have to interrupt me to remind me or interrupt the lesson. As a teacher I also feel that the class responded well to my teaching style, of positive reinforcement, instead of focusing on the bad I will make sure to focus on what the students did correctly, I made sure to promote a sense of trust within the students, it was due to all of these factors that I managed to complete Teaching Experience without any issues.

How did you feel taking on all the responsibilites of a teacher in Block 1 compared to Block 2?

In all honesty I was confident in my abilities in both Block 1 and Block 2, I didn’t hesitate to adopt the responsibilities of a teacher. For Block 1 I decided to do my day on a Monday which in turn was chaotic but if I want to be a teacher I have to be present everyday no matter what, on the last two days in Block 2 I was even more confident in my abilities than during Block 1, I had everything prepared the day before just to eliminate that task and make the following day easier, there were points were the class was rowdy or too chaotic where I had to take a few minutes to reflect on what I was going to do to solve this but after some quick, on the spot reflection I was ready to come back and be better than ever. In the classroom I never got too overwhelmed that I doubted myself, I adapted and learnt the ways the different students learn and understand, this in turn made teaching much easier. It was all these small things I adapted to and overcame that made it easy to adapt to the responsibilities also including break duties and extra murals and if I didn’t let my marking get the best of me I kept on top of that too!

Which activties did you find most challenging? How did you overcome these?

I found that extra murals were the most challenging. After a long day of teaching, marking, dealing with tittle-tales all day, I was EXHAUSTED, and now I had to go spend another 2 hours doing cricket, making sure everyone was there, assisting coaches in the blazing sun and then making sure all the students were picked up and safe, while I still had to go home and plan more lessons for the following days and make sure all my resources were ready. It was challenging for me because I was tired and this usually makes me very irritable, but I got over this quickly when I realised these students didn’t do anything to deserve a moody and grumpy teacher, this snapped me out of my mood and made me excited to be around the kids, another reason that I snapped out of this was seeing the parents cheering for their kids, it showed they trust us with their whole world and if we stay grumpy and irritable we’re not only betraying that trust but teachers end up breaking down their students, therefore, this made me get over my irritability and moodiness very quickly.

Analyse the results of your self-evaluation survey where would you rate yourself higher?

Looking at all my answers of the survey, I believe I was very accurate with what I stated, I am in tune with my abilities and what I am capable of, what I could of ranked myself higher in was that I know how to communicate effectively in, as well as in relation to their subjects, in order to mediate learning, in my opinion I do think this was one of strong suits, I made sure of this when I was teaching therefore I could’ve rated myself higher in that field but all the rest of the evaluation I think I was fair and honest.

Justify how you have improved these competencies through this experience.

My communication with the learners got better and better as the teaching experience progressed this assisted me greatly in mediating their learning, to a point where I think I became quite strong at it, therefore I believe that I should rank myself higher.

Look at the exit level outcomes and the final comments of your mentor teacher in your School Assessment Log (TE411).Compare this to the initial self-evaluation you had completed at the beginning of your teaching experience.

Unfortunately, my mentor teacher signed and decided not to leave a comment on the paper, but she did leave a comment on my last lesson plan that says that the I worked extremely hard, and the children will miss me, and my exit level outcomes averaged at around 79-85%. Therefore, if I had to make a connection with what was said and my results I believe that I lived up to my expectations and may have even exceeded them, this is clear in the feedback that my mentor gave me which was nearly all positive, leaving me hopeful and proud of my achievements.