How to survive your first few days as a teacher
I an 15 and this is a piece of coursework I have to do. I had to write a believable article about anything I could have experienced. So for this I pretended to be a teacher and write about my first day, and how such a FAIL it was!!:biggrin5:
May Everybody Who Reads This Please Leave a Small Comment about How I Could Improve, or What You Liked about It Much Appreciated:coolgleamA:
My first couple of weeks as being a teacher was terrible. Children were constantly throwing fits and pieces of equipment across the classroom. There were many scenarios where I truly believed that teaching was not my forte; but now thirteen years on I love every moment and have done since my very first term! In this article I will try to convince you, teach you how to cope and to truly believe in yourself when first taking up teaching as a job, and not to give up.
The first few weeks of school, as a teacher are the hardest; they are full of doubts and worries. I honestly still can’t believe the thoughts that went through my mind on my first day! I spent about an hour deciding what to wear even though I was going to be in a classroom with children with an average age of 10 for most of the day! I believe the main concern of a teacher, on the first day trying to fit in. Making the kids and staff like you, I suppose is one of the foremost methods of achieving this. I believe that a good first day is achieved by making a good impression, which is exactly, what I feel, I didn't do.
My day started off with my first tutorial. I met the children for the first time and I was really trying to be kind and get to know them. This, I learnt, was meant to be the ‘easiest’ part of the day. Well, I beg to differ. A child walked in late due to a dentist appointment, and was holding a see-through wash bag with all types of kit in it to keep his newly acquired braces clean. Later on, I heard a nasty, grotesque sniffling sound followed by a thunderous cough. The whole class erupted with laughter. I walked towards the back of the room, where I came upon a different student who appeared to have sniffed some dental floss up his nose, and coughed the other end out of his mouth. Although I had found it rather amusing myself, suddenly he started to cough badly, and then fell brutally off his chair into the middle of the room and went into ruthless spasm. I could only think what would happen if the headmaster had come into my classroom and saw this young man trying to floss his nasal cavity. Fortunately the child came out of the intensive care unit and eventually came back to school.
Later that day I was asked to cover for a science teacher who had become sick in the middle of the fifth lesson. He handed me a video and left in a hurry, obviously very sick. This biology class was very well behaved, so I decided to read my book and left the class to watch the video. All of a sudden the class room exploded into a truly crazy scene. Yelling, laughing, groaning, and whooping. I looked up to see, projected onto the 9 foot screen, a very large close-up shot of a human baby emerging from the womb. It was a good twenty minutes before the children had calmed down and we were able to continue with the lesson.
I began to develop the attitude that the school day couldn't get any worse. But towards the end of the day I was called to another cover lesson, but this time it was with a class of year 3s. The history class had just watched a programme about the Battle of Independence. They were then asked to talk about the relationship between the English and Irish. One tiny little girl, who seemed as fragile as glass, very wearily read to me her lesson’s work, with, what I must add had the most curious and bizarre spellings and grammar that I cannot successfully imitate: “the inglish peepel wer verry greedy on the irish peepol becus the leprocorn had a pot off gold.” There was then an awkward silence and I realised she had finished. I didn't know what to respond with; you can hardly tell the child that it was too short, riddled with errors and factually incorrect. So I sat there smiling, and asked another child to read theirs out.
In the final lesson of the day, I was working with a year 8 class on the concept of decision making, and the steps we go through to reach a conclusion. I was attempting to make the point that, although we go through the steps, we usually do it subconsciously. So I tried to get the children in my class to tell me step by step what they would do, but they were having none of it. I then asked the class what they would do if they were fishing in a fast flowing river with their father and the bank collapsed, and their father fell in. A child named Chuck put up his hand and responded, “I'd let the bastard drown.” Shocked, I demanded to meet Chuck's parents and discuss why he had decided to swear during a lesson. I met Chuck’s father later on. I now agree with Chuck.
As you can see, my first day wasn't at all successful; and I hope yours will be better. A few tips I hope you could take away from my mistakes are:
1: Under no circumstances, within your first few days of being a teacher, take your eyes off the children. I was silly enough to not pay attention to my class and allow one of the children to get hold of dental floss. I'm not saying that dental floss should be banned in schools, but do try to find out who the main troublemakers are before you allow them to play with mint flavoured string.
2: ALWAYS, check the label on the video that you're about to show the class. Just be 100% certain that it isn't going to have any sexual references in it. If it, by any chance does, I would not show it in your first lesson! Again, get to know your class a bit better before trying to teach them about reproductive organs, and how babies are made.
3: Try your hardest to be more lenient with the younger years. It's almost as nerve wracking for you as it is for them. It could be their first day at school and you can hardly expect them to perform their best.
4: If it is possible try to get to know the parents as soon as possible before and don’t make any assumptions. So don't do what I did, and mistake Chuck’s dad for being a respectable guy. If this is not possible do not worry, as you will have the pleasure of meeting all the parents at parents evening!
I hope my article helps you with surviving and enduring your first few days of school. Once again, it will all pay off, when you learn the fantastic benefits of being a teacher and I'm not just talking about the long holidays!
After all, how rewarding is it to hear about Fred the dental floss sniffer starting dental school and hoping to make the Hollywood smile even brighter; to learn that Jane from the embarrassing biology class is training to be a Midwife; to witness the fragile Irish historian achieve a well-deserved A* for her English Language A’Level and is hoping to travel the world and finally, to discover that Chuck eventually achieved his Life Guard qualification and is planning his sports summer camp coaching in America.
Now how satisfying is that?
