Food for thought...

The other day a friend and I were talking about how great it would be to win the lottery. I started thinking about what I would do if I won the lottery and came to the decision that I'd probably still want to teach. I started thinking about whether the way I would teach would be different if I did have all the money in the world.

For some reason I think it would, but I'm not sure how it would be different or why this is so. I wonder why.

Posted at 10:40AM Dec 29, 2008 by Catherine Vawser  |  Comments[0]

Freaking out about teaching and a rant about UniSA's MBED program structure

It's been a while since I've written here - I've just come out of a very hectic semester. A semester which ended so neatly with the PAR3 practicum - our fourth visit in schools - the second to last time we have a hands on experience before we are teaching in a classroom.

As I may have said before, I never questioned my need to teach. I love knowledge, learning, experiences, fun, challenges... and of course the children. Of course, ironically, not until now. Looking into the final year I find myself freaking out.  Thinking about myself in a classroom teaching makes me feel slightly sick - I wonder if this is normal or whether I am just lacking 'life experience' which makes me relatively unprepared in relation to my mature-age peers. I mean, I look at some of the women in our course who have teenage children and think that if I had managed to get married, move out, have children, work a full-time job... teaching wouldn't seem so scary. But for people like me who were some of the youngest from our years at high school, freshly picked from SATAC straight into Uni to be teaching at the fine age of 21... The biggest challenge I've probably been through would be friendship issues which in relation to the stresses of teaching just doesn't even make a dent.

On a completely different note, I was lucky enough to go overseas for a few weeks after this Practicum and even though that probably wasn't 'life changing' - it certainly was an eye-opener. Spent a week in Hong Kong which was very humid compared to Adelaide and definitely prepared us for the week in Beijing where the lack of English was an absolute shocker, along with the cold. I brought the children from the practicum back some Yuans from China and also took a picture of myself in front of the Bird's Nest wearing the t-shirt they had all signed when I left. They absolutely loved it. I've always been jealous of big cities with their tall buildings and massive cultural base, however I think I was almost as excited to land back here then I was taking off in the first place. For some strange reason I think the trip made me think about teaching in the country - somewhere along the logic lines of 'as long as I am in Australia where people speak English and the air is clear'. Even so, after hearing about the English speaking schools in Hong Kong it was tempting to seriously consider teaching there. I think if I ever did teach overseas Hong Kong would be one of the places I would try to go.

It scares me that I can think about where I will be 5 or 10 years in the future and have absolutely no idea.

I mean, I know that I will be teaching and I know that I will be financially secure. I wonder if others my age about to finish Uni have those same thoughts. I don't think many people communicate it though because I feel quite alone in this line of thinking.

One thing I would specifically like to complain about here is the MBED program. I love UniSA and my experiences for the most part have been great, but there is something seriously wrong with the way that we're being taught how to teach. First of all, I worked out that we only get one term of teaching in schools (this includes all the practicum blocks - even though we often don't teach full time in these blocks until the last few weeks) and this really doesn't make sense. I think there should be much more emphasis placed on teaching in schools. It would make sense to make it a five year course and have a semester or even a year in an apprenticeship type setup - a few weeks doesn't really suffice.

Secondly the gap between PAR2 (in the first semester of our second year) and PAR3 (in the second semester of our third year) is too large. A year of not being in a classroom and suddenly being expected to teach doesn't work. I like to think that teaching comes relatively naturally to me and the first week of this last practicum didn't work because I was that out of the zone.

The last complaint - and probably the largest - has to do with experience with different year levels. We don't get a choice of year level (we get some small choice for PAR2 depending on what school you are given and which teachers are willing to take student teachers - many had no choice) until the last practicum. I have always wanted to teach Yr 6/7's and have always assumed that because I have had experience in every other year level I could choose 6/7's for my final practicum. Only a few weeks ago we were told that we had to choose the opposite (i.e. R/1/2 to 3/4/5/6/7) to our PAR3 experience. I had 6/7's for my first prac (this doesn't really count) 4/5's for my second, R/1's for my third and finally 3/4's for the last prac. Because of this I will be working again with R/1/2's because this is how the system works. This is strange because I feel a lot more comfortable teaching R/1/2's then I do teaching 6/7's - that I am learning how to teach because I wanted to teach 6/7's - that most people want to teach R/1/2's and that in wanting to teach 6/7's I feel very much in the minority and finally - that I am not going to feel comfortable teaching 6/7's because I have really had no prior experience with this age group. I shouldn't be the one really complaining. A close friend of mine had 6/7's with me in the first prac, followed by two pracs with R/1/2's and another with 6/7's - and of course she will have to endure another prac with R/1/2's EVEN THOUGH she has not had any experience with the year levels from 3-5.

One would think a teaching course should make you feel comfortable teaching any year level from those you are qualified to teach. Apparently not.

I also loved how they sprung the idea that we can choose to work as a part or full time specialist less than a week before the form had to be handed in with your choice of school, year level and whether or not you are undertaking any specialist work. Of course they had the last three years to tell us this kind of information. Something like choosing a specialist option is something that should be thought through for more than a week.

I chose to specialise in Arts because that would give me more experience with 6/7's than it would if I were undertaking full time classroom teaching with R/1/2's (and of course because I love the Arts - but the problem here is that this is not the main reason).

Posted at 11:12PM Dec 13, 2008 by Catherine Vawser  |  Comments[0]

Prepared to Teach?

One thing I find interesting about being a student teacher is the almost continuous stream of thoughts that run through your head about what kind of a teacher you will become. It can happen at any time - when you're at Uni sitting in a lecture, when you're completing an assignment, when you're trying to get to sleep... The interesting thing about it is how one day you might be really positive, thinking about how good you're going to be, how you will always be planning engaging lessons that cater to the diverse needs of students, how you will use effective assessment to set up every student in your class for success. Sometimes the mood is completely different, where you get this sinking feeling of "what am I getting myself into?"

I'm one of those people who have experienced that 'calling' towards teaching as a profession. I remember back to when I was five or six, pretending to run classrooms with my brother and cousins, always taking those leadership roles throughout school. It's always been teaching without any question or critical thought, because it's just a part of who I am, as opposed to the result of a particular experience. I remember in Year 8 changing how I wrote the letter 'a' back to the standard South Australian format because I knew that I'd have to write it that way when I was in the classroom. Of course there are other important things in my life that I know I can take up professionally after I've been teaching for a while (photography, web design etc.) but teaching has always been my main focus.  

Teaching as a profession does scare me. It's exciting and challenging but above all it's scary. I know that in 2010 I'll be teaching but I have no idea where, or how I will get there, or how much effort I'll have to put in to get there. I might be doing some TRT work. How will I get all my resources together to do that? I think in 2010 I'll lose my life, without any time to do anything fun, or watch TV, or sleep for that matter. Some days when I'm not doing much I feel almost guilty (the guilt directed at my future self) for not doing as much as I can now to be absolutely prepared for those first years out. It's unfair, I don't think any other degree has the same 'heaviness' as teaching (Why is everything in the future so heavy? Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?)

Being a student teacher you may find that you can never do enough to prepare you for what is coming. Not that you're quite sure what you're preparing yourself for. Will it be as bad as I think it will sometimes?

Tags: student teacher university
Posted at 01:51PM Aug 30, 2008 by Catherine Vawser  |  Comments[0]

About this Blog

[Read More]

Tags: beginning teachers student teaching university
Posted at 05:37PM Aug 21, 2008 by Catherine Vawser  |  Comments[0]