Anxiety... :S

Be careful what you wish for.

Oh, was I thinking this today. Mind you, it is probably for the best, but I can’t help but think I’ve just dug myself a hole. Let me explain…

Honesty here.

Being that this week was a shortened school week (Monday was their Labor Day), I knew there would obviously be less teaching opportunities, as we would have one day less in the week. In addition, Tuesdays we have “Tech,” where students go to a neighboring school for specials (music, art, etc.) for half the day, and the rest of the day was independence work on upcoming presentations. Wednesday again was a fully independent day to begin work on a new project, and today and Friday were slotted to be our other student teacher’s days to full-time teach. So unfortunately, that meant no real teaching time for me, and I definitely was pretty “bummed” and felt a little out of place. For one thing, I’m certainly not used to the students being so independent, as I’ve mostly had experience with younger students. In addition, as I believe I said last time, my students are…unique little persons. A lot of them do not take to authority well, and they are having an especially hard time taking school seriously at the end of the school year, because most of them will be graduating 8^th grade in a few weeks. If I haven’t explained already, my students are a year 7/8 split, about 30 of them, and here in New Zealand, the seasons are switched from ours, so we are in Spring going into Summer now. Therefore, their school year ends in December.

Anyway, yes, I’m having a really hard time “dealing with” my students. There’s just so many of them, and because they’re older, they’re asked to do a lot of random tasks during the day. So, there’s always students gone out of the classroom, students are often getting sent to the office for bad behavior, and some who are in class get very loud an disruptive, and honestly, it’s just overwhelming. I don’t know if it’s because I’m inexperienced with this age level, if it’s because we’re near the end of the school year, or if it’s just this class, but I’m feeling very out of place, and just generally unsuccessful; helpless. I definitely know classroom management is an important part of the classroom, but it seems like there’s 10x more of “putting out fires” and “damage control,” managing the students instead of actual teaching and learning going on. It’s frustrating. Very frustrating. I was “warned” by my new cooperating teacher that this class was difficult, but I never imagined it would be like this. I’m going to be doing some serious reflecting on this as time goes on, so I can remain positive and hopefully get through to the students. That is, teach them meaningful information (with good, practical connections) while forming positive bonds.

So, back to today…

Yes, I’ve been frustrated with my student’s behaviors, the classroom schedule (not structured in the way I’m used to…), the fact that I haven’t been able to see my cooperating teacher teach hardly at all (she’s been out a lot), and how I feel like I’ve backed off more than I would have if the other student teacher wasn’t there. All in all, I haven’t really been able to teach yet at all, not even a little. So today finally, after trying to schedule some times to meet with my cooperating teacher (she’s really busy), we got together and planned out a lot. And wow, she gave me a lot of info. So now, after not teaching anything in this class so far, starting Monday, I will be starting/teaching a new writing unit (which I must create tonight), and at the end of next week, be teaching Reading and Math as well. Plus, the next Monday I’ll be starting my Spanish unit (which I must create this weekend). So I’ll be teaching the majority of the lessons in a week and a half. I’m not too worried about Reading, but obviously I’m pretty intimidated by the rest of it. The writing unit I’m sure will be fine, I really just need time to get it planned out (something I do not have a lot of). Also, for math, I’ll be teaching Measurement, so that’ll be interesting to try and learn the metric system before I have to teaching it in a week (I need a “Metric System for Dummies” or something like that). As for the Spanish, I’m super excited about it, but being that I haven’t actually ever taught it before, that’s scary (especially so soon and with the rest of these things!). Yep. Overwhelmed. But, this is what I wanted I must admit (just would have liked a smoother transition), so I’ll just have to work hard and try and keep up. Wish me luck!!

On a better note, although I realize this was mostly me complaining about things that really are no one’s fault, I will say this will definitely be a learning experience, which really, is the point. Also, this weekend was great. We were able to spend 3 days relaxing; browsing shops in Auckland, walking along the beach in Whitianga, seeing some beautiful countryside/landscape, taking great pictures, and enjoying fantastic weather.

I’ve attached some pictures of my weekend. Enjoy.

First Days as a Kiwi

It starts.

Thursday night already, which means I've been gone for almost a week already! Crazy? Oh yes. Last Friday began the insanely long trip to essentially the other side of the world. Flight #1 departing at 2:30pm, and finally arriving in Auckland on Sunday around 9:00am. That would be 24 1/2 hours of travel, not considering the time differences; that's REAL travel time. Ouch. Surprisingly, however, the last flight, that wonderful 12 hour one, was about as comfortable as it could be considering. Apart from a grumpy man sitting next to me, it was quite enjoyable. We were served an actually tasty (and I mean good!) dinner of chicken and pasta almost immediately into the flight, along with a free glass of wine. Of course, I was all over that. After getting a decent amount of sleep for a plane ride, I relaxed a bit, watched a movie, and before I knew it, we were descending. The staff was fantastic; very friendly and helpful. They really made it as pleasant as they could for us. After a smooth trip through customs, I found myself being pulled into a welcoming hug from my new host mom, Rachel. To say she's awesome is a huge understatement. I don't know how she did it, but even after a few days, I feel so welcomed and comfortable in my new temporary home. I appreciate everything she's done for me so far, and it's a really good feeling to know I have a nice place to go to at the end of the day.

On to Monday. Trying to ignore the nagging jet-lag, Katie, Beth, and I headed to Swanson School bright and early Monday morning. I met my cooperating teacher, my students, and the second student teacher, a woman from the University of Auckland who will be in the class for 3 weeks. Right from the get-go, I could tell that this would be an...interesting experience. My year 7/8 students (ages 11-13) are very rambunctious (you know those hormones), wild, and pretty rebellious. In addition, I'm not sure how to go about "sharing" teaching time with the other student teacher as of right now. It's difficult knowing that I should probably have more seniority between the two of us, as I am in my final year and she is only in her first year of college, however she is older so by instinct I look to her sometimes for mentoring. I need to be careful with this. Besides these issues, the education system is a lot more different than I thought it'd be. It's hard to explain how, but the structure and goals(?) are just different. I'll try to explain it better as time goes on. I'm trying to keep an open mind with everything, and I am excited to face these challenges, as I know it will only help me in the future. Plus, one thing I'm super excited for is the fact that I will have the opportunity to teach my students some Spanish! To think, I'll have my experience with teaching Spanish in another English-speaking country! :)

Well, I could definitely write more, and I'm sure most of this was scatter-brainish, but now you know just a bit of my life here so far. I'm still sick, but I'm hoping it'll be going away soon (not that I haven't been hoping that for weeks now), especially with my early bed time...it's 10:00pm here, an hour later than my bedtime every other night I've been here. :) This weekend we're planning on going to the Coromandel Peninsula, which I'm pretty pumped for. If anyone's seen Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, the beginning part of the movie (when they first enter Narnia) is where I'm heading. Exciting!

Until next time.