Oh, two posts in one day...whoo hoo!
Ok, so while my first day of teaching isn't officially over, I have finished teaching my classes for the day. I had four classes to teach today, all third grade. It wasn't really that difficult at all, but there were still things I had to learn as the day went on. It's been interesting to see how different the classes act, based on their teacher instruction. One class that I taught today was amazingly well behaved. They were quiet when they needed to be, listened intently and followed direction from both me and their regular teacher. It was pretty awesome. The other classes were also good, but there was just a noticeable difference in the behavior of that one particular class.
I don't think I will have any problem at all with teaching them English. I now understand how well I need to stick to their National Curriculum. So if I want to veer a bit away from the books, I know how close I need to stay on track. Today I still have two meetings planned, to do some lesson planning for next week with two other teachers.
Before my meeting starts in 10 minutes, I wanted to share a bit of an interesting situation that occured today: After lunch, I returned to my classroom to find that some students had gone through my bag and stolen what little bit of wons (Korean money) I actually kept in my wallet (less than $2, really) and had proceeded to waste half a bottle of handsantizer over some items on my desk. There was another teacher with me when we discovered this, and she upset about it. And truthfully, I was a little sad that it had happened, but I now know for next time, to lock my classroom door.
But the amazing part about this whole thing was that I got to use this situation to talk to the other teacher about it, and show her we shouldn't let things like this affect our day. I told her that it was in the past, and I couldn't change that fact. But I just made sure that it didn't affect my attitude for the rest of the day. I wasn't mad about it, so she didn't feel bad anymore. We then got to talking about the students in the school, and how they are affected by their environment. I shared with her my thoughts about how teachers don't just teach a particular subject, but we teach students about life. We can help affect how a student views life and how their interact with everyone. Teachers are a positive influence in a child's life, especially when they have no positive influences anywhere else. I really enjoyed my conversation with the other teacher, and she wants to continue to talk about it with me and another teacher later today.
I just saw this as an amazing opportunity God gave me to pour into another teacher's life and to help her see the good that we do, as teachers.
It's been a great day today. And tomorrow, I will be going to my aunt and uncle's house for the weekend. Yay!
-Pamela
ps. I learned how to spell my name in Korean today!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment