First Day of School; nervewracking yet exciting!

I didn't sleep well last night, partially because I got warm in the middle of the night but mostly because of nerves with this being the first day and having to teach a lesson. I woke up excited nonetheless, and ready to take on those 3rd years! Upon arriving at the classroom Miss Wright showed me basic things like, where the copy machine is and how to use it, as well as basic things and routines around the classroom. I again took roll call and was quite pleased with myself for remembering many of their names from Friday. The morning went along quite fine. Several of the children came in late, something that Miss Wright said happens quite often and their "late slips" usually have reasons like, "Slept In" or "Was Shopping in the Morning". I was also amazed at how many "breaks" there are during a day. The students start school at 8am. They have a "fruit break" around 10 am (10-15 min), have a short lunch around 11am (30 min), and another longer lunch at around 12:30 (1 hour)!

My lesson was on something that I had said I was hoping I didn't have to teach - how to count money. If I was in the US, I wouldn't mind teaching this at all, but because Australia has a different currency, it made this a bit more difficult! It felt good to begin teaching again, and the students appeared to not only be enjoying having me teach, but learning something as well! For part of my lesson I broke the students up into groups and had them count money as a group. Miss Wright prepared me that because of space limitations as well as the character of the class she has that she does not work in groups much at all, but encouraged me to try it! With some mental preparation, the students were quite successful not only with the group structure but also with counting money! It was wonderful to see third grade students leaning over, helping their partners, and encouraging their group members in a positive manner. Very encouraging to me as a teacher. After my lesson, I asked Miss Wright what she thought I could improve on, and she said that she simply wants me to slow down. She said that several of the above average and average students were right on pace with me, but her lower level students tended to struggle. I'll have to work on that in future lessons.

As I was working with several students, I got the feeling of just how far behind some of the students were. Several of the students had trouble simply copying information off of the board. I attempted to help speed one of the students up by spelling the words for him; sadly he looked at me and asked "What's a 'd' look like again?". He didn't know what more than half of the alphabet looked like! It was even more heartbreaking because he was working his very hardest to keep up the pace, but not knowing your letters is a big crutch to try to overcome. Apparently several of the children in my class come from a rough and tough background, providing them with very little background knowledge for us to build on. I'm sure I'll have more on that in another day.

written by

cowane1 on August 23, 2010 from Morayfield, Australia

from the travel blog: Australian Adventures!

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