Friday, July 30, 2010

...Saturday Brain Dump?

So I've had a bit of a busy week.

Tried my hand at relief teaching for the first time on Tuesday, and oh boy, was that an experience in itself. I really feel for substitute teachers. Imagine being woken by a 6am phonecall, jumping in the shower and throwing on some clothes, trying to find your way to a school you've never taught in before, with no idea what year group you're going to teach, let alone what subjects you're expected to be teaching that day. You walk in empty handed and the plans of the day are thrust upon you with ten minutes left before the school day begins. That's a little taste of substitute life.

Substitute teaching isn't so bad if you're placed with a reasonably well behaved class, but get stuck with a volatile class and it wreaks havoc on your confidence. Students who don't respect you or follow your instructions can leave your lesson in tatters. I'd like to think I'm a reasonably friendly and fair teacher, but often students don't recognise these qualities until you've forged a working relationship with them, and that is near impossible to establish in the space of one day. I don't mind doing relief work for now, but I would much rather teach one class in one school, even if that meant taking a full time position.

Other than that, exciting news! We will be taking care of a baby kangaroo for the next month while its owner is on holiday. You can probably bet on little Rhubarb making a cameo in my comics sometime in the future. Marsupials are ripe for comedy, right?

No comments:

Post a Comment