Wrap up of my very first week as a "Miss" and "Juffie"

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his week has been a whorl wind of an experience. Arriving at school I was overwhelmed to say the least. He kids seemed so unruly to me, I felt as though I had absolutely no control over their shouting and screaming. These kids showed absolutely no sign of wanting to work, which disheartened me, to say the least. This however, was not an accurate representation of who they are as a school. I had to revisit my experiences and in so doing I realised that the reason for their unruliness was obvious. They had just come from a long holiday of doing as they pleased to having to sit in restricting desks and being made to keep quiet. Understandably! I battle to get myself into gear after a long holiday, imagine being just 14 and having to sit still when all you want to do is excitedly chat to your buddies on the other side of the class about the holiday!

Throughout the week I saw how they gradually tamed down to the point where they were almost entirely manageable. I must say that over the course of the week I have grown to like these children whom I dreaded seeing on the second day. So much change in one week. I have grown used to the teacher and her teaching style and realize that everybody has their own way of teaching and hers is different but custom made to who she is. I had the opportunity of presenting y first ever lesson to a high school class. The class was to be repeated to the other class in the grade which sounds simple enough although in practice it lacks this simplicity. I found myself trying very hard to perfectly replicate the lesson to the other class and felt very frustrated when I missed something or the children didn’t react in the way that the other class ha read. I had slightly more discipline issues with the grade 8F class than I did with the G class. The astonishing thing though is that the naughty class (just look how I'm positioning them! tisk tisk!) produced the best work! I was so glad that they got the message that I was trying to bring to them about descriptive essay writing. The G class however completely missed the point, with some boys not having down anything at the end of the period which was frustrating since I gave them ample time to complete what they had to do. I followed up with the today, Friday about what they did wrong ad what I really liked about their work. Besides simple issues like the distinction between too and to or their, there and they're, they wrote as though they were writing a diary entry. This however cannot be generalised to the whole class as some did perform and came up with delightful pieces to read. I marked the pieces and wrote some constructive comments, some of which can be viewed in my portfolio.

Initially at the beginning of the week I was terrified of the classes because I didn’t really know how to approach the situation. It turns out that the influence I have over the kids is far greater than I could have imagined. I was always kind to them but ha to remember that they are not my friends, since I am someone who enjoys being playful a laughing. I had to remember that there is a time to be friendly and a time to be stern, something that I am learning how to manage more and more every single day. I had the grade 10's today for a reading period where I read to them. They seemed to really enjoy this because I can remember that for most of the period you could hear a pin drop! I gave others a chance to read when I felt tired and gave as many as I cold the chance to participate, especially those who seemed to not be paying much attention.

There was this one boy who sat in front of me who was lying with his head on his arms. My instinct told me to let him be, but when it came to his chance to read I gently touched him and asked him to read, which he did with no problems. After this I could see that even though he had his head down, he was paying attention. At the end of the period I jokingly told him that it looks like he got his afternoon nap in! He is a very shy boy who had been bullied throughout his high school carer so his demeanour is that of a child who doesn’t want to be seen. In my showing him kindness and respect this seemed to have opened him up towards me which made me feel so honoured. He told me that he wasn’t feeling well and I wished him well so that he could come back next week feeling better. Shyly he said "miss has a nice voice" and I thanked him. On his departure he gave me a hug. To this I had mixed emotions because we are told that we cannot touch a student, that we have to keep our distance at all times, but I felt hat this boy needed this kind of affirmation from me and I understood an appreciated his display of affection. I spoke to their teacher later and asked me if that’s normal and she said that he has had some issues with bullying and that I should feel good that he came to greet me like that. I felt so validated as a teacher, as though even though we have to deal with nonsense from unruly children, it’s these moments that make it all worthwhile. If I could make that kind of impact on even just one child, it makes it all worth it in the end. Looking forward to seeing those kids again, and I mean this with all the sincerity in my heart. I love being a student-teacher.