Life As a Teacher Reflection

The three days in the life as a teacher was good but stressful. I think the first day for me was challenging because time management is very important. Time is never on one's side and I have witnessed it with my first day of a day in the life as a teacher. There is so much work to get through the day but so little time. My second and third day I took it easy because my mentor teacher had told me I must not be hard on myself these things happen on a daily where teachers run out of time on completely work in one day. What I learnt is that it is not about getting through the work with the learners, but it is seeing if they understand what is being taught to them. I think this is why my time management was not the best because I wanted to make sure that my learners had understood certain concepts when it came to maths etc. The challenging activity for me was Maths, although the learners have done the work numerous of times, they still lack the knowledge and concept of the work. The steps for certain word problems are that the learners can identify what sum they need to do but lack to show the way they got the answer. This is why when I give the learners a word problem, I always tell them to show their working out. I help the learners solve these problems letting them work it out on the board so that I can see their different ways of working out the problem. I would rate myself higher by explaining the work and writing on the board. Whatever I have written on the board I would first do an intro to the lesson with examples before letting the learners attempt to do the work on their own. As a teacher you cannot expect children to just understanding what is given to them, we need to give them background on how to go about it. I have improved by gaining confidence when presenting a lesson and just being myself. My nerves were keeping me back from showing my full potential as a teacher. I had to step into character and show the learners who is in charge and teach them ways that will work for everyone. Seeing the comment of my mentor teacher just gave me the push and confidence to know that I have the potential to be a teacher even though I was doubting myself. My mentor teacher has also taught me a lot on certain areas where I should focus more on so that when I do have my own classroom, I am prepared. I am extremely grateful that over the past 4 years of going on teaching practice all my mentor teachers have been the best help and motivation as to where I am today.