The Teaching Begins...

Today was day 2 of summer school, day 1 of teaching an actual lesson. Yesterday we gave a diagnostic exam to see where they were at – and there is no way to describe them other than bad. The best was 34/54 – failing. The worst was 6/54. My students are incredibly far behind; we all have our work cut out for us for the next four weeks. The upside (sort of) was that classroom management, my biggest worry, was not an issue. My students were stoic; it was like talking to a wall. They didn’t speak to each other, they didn’t move, I couldn’t even get them to nod their heads until the end! Now, that was because a couple of them were likely high (based on the judgment of three inexperienced teachers and non-drug users), but they were focused, if unresponsive.

Today I taught my first lesson ever. It was on recognizing the symbols for positive and negative numbers and absolute value. Spine tingling, I know. It went smoothly, more because the students were already familiar with these ideas than my teaching, but I also felt like because of that they got bored. As the objectives I have to teach become more complicated, and more computation than identification, I think lessons will be more challenging and have the potential to be more interesting. Boring content was definitely a challenge for the first teaching day! We (my teaching collaborative) have also run into questions about what we’re supposed to teach – does identify an absolute value truly mean to identify? Or should you also be able to apply? Evaluate the accuracy of expressions? How many steps beyond the objective to teach is a question we keep asking. We also spent a lot of time grading today – assessments, homework, and in-class work…most kids are on track so far.

The highlight of the day was my faculty advisor’s (FA) evaluation of my first lesson – he had some good feedback about longer wait time after asking questions, but he had a lot of positive things to say too. My favorite was at the top: “Wow! You have natural teacher skills and they are already evident!” That made my day – even more than my kids doing well on their daily assessment or those glimmers of interest – having an experienced teacher see promise that I might be capable was huge.

I walked out of class today thinking, “Wow, that was a lot of fun!” It was a rush of adrenaline and excitement that I hope continues! At the same time, it does feel a little strange to be a teacher. Not so much standing in front of the class, writing on the board, asking and answering questions – it feels weird to be an authority figure. Taking attendance, confiscating cell phones, doing courtyard duty, signing passes, calling on kids when no one wants to raise their hand, scaring them that I knew all their names on the first day and would pick on them even while my back was turned, grading, making that ultimate determination if I think they understood the objective or not. Those are the moments when it hits me that I am a teacher and that my kids’ success or failure in Algebra is in my hands; that I have responsibility for them. It’s daunting, but exhilarating.