Practice: Practice reflection

Practice: Practice reflection

Three months of my students practice passed. It is high time for a general reflection of what I saw and what I experienced.

My first thought is that I learned much more than I imagined a person can learn from observing and doing few microteachings. Before starting the practice and after two first days I was bored and couldn't see the purpose of this whole thing. I was convinced it'll be a lose of time rather than learning new skills. I mean, how can you learn if you don't physically practice your the skills needed, you just sit in the corner and observe. In my head it was boring. I admit that first few lessons I observed I didn't paid much attention.

Nevertheless, on the third day I came as non enthusiastic as I was before, but there were new situations going on on there lesson. I was told before that there is no "perfect lesson" and no two lessons are the same, but only then did I understand what this means. Suddenly, observing the same teacher on a Monday maths lesson with 6th graders in the same classroom was a brand new thing to me. Moreover, knowing the basics from observing the students and the teacher I was able to focus on the things actually taking place in the classroom. It opened my eyes as an observer.

Let's take one of the maths lessons for the example. As usually, the bell rang, I took a sit in the corner of the classroom and relaxed knowing I have 45 minutes of just sitting. After just few minutes I saw a teacher talking to a group of students, while the two sitting close to me started arguing. One of them took the others pen and didn't want to give it back. The teacher didn't notice anything. When they raised their voices she came closer, got very angry and decided to punch both of them. The boy whose pen was taken was very angry and didn't do anything till the end of the lesson, he just sat there with his arms crossed. As a third person in this situation I felt so sorry for the boy. I could understand the teacher as she didn't know the whole truth, but still I was amazed how things that we see can be different from how they really are.

This whole experience was a lesson of modesty to me as before I perceived myself as a good and patient observer. I was so wrong. My further conclusion is that I shouldn't assume that  I'm "this" or "that" good at anything, teaching for example. It's easier said than done, I guess I need to be very careful about all the processes and mechanisms in my brain to avoid giving untrue statements.

My other reflective thoughts are about the math teacher. In one of the previous posts I described her as not very competent and rather poor teacher. After seeing her ability to control the children after all and after experiencing micro teaching with the whole class I have much more respect for her. These are not easy kids, if some ever existed. Without her help my first micro teaching could have been a disaster. There was a group work and some students worked hard and the others just talked to each other. I told them few times to help their friends, they just nodded but when I moved on the situation was just the same. My mentor teacher talked to them in a way they could not continue talking. I think she used her knowledge about every student to make them work in a group. It takes a lot of effort and knowledge to do this.

To sum up, I find my practice experience precious even if the school, teachers or students has some drawbacks. I slowly learn to function in reality which is not all changeable. I learn how to adapt to a situation, people and environment, I see it as a highly important teacher's skill.