Jade Down Under

Hey everyone,

Although my practicum was last week I've been told to post about the experience as apparently people are feeling left out. I didn't post anything last week as it was crazy busy and then on the weekend I went to Crystal Creek and forgot about posting about how teaching went.

First off, love it. I was placed with a great 'mentor' teacher who gave me enough feedback to encourage improvement while also providing positive reinforcement to encourage further positive development. My nameless teacher (don't want to breach the whole privacy thing) has been teaching for almost nine years but still remembers what it is like to be a pre-service teacher; major bonus. For placement I was to teach two of her classes. Well, to be precise I was supposed to teach two 20 minute lessons to a small group of students however, I taught two lessons to the whole class. The first lesson was to a grade 11 class starting a new unit on documentaries. All went well, I was nervous the kids were talking a bit, but I feel they absorbed the information I was delivering.
The second lesson was a fourth period lesson (da da daaaaaa) to a grade 8 class. I'd love to say that it all went pleasantly, they loved me, I loved them... blah, blah, blah ***reality check*** They talked, and talked, and talked, and I stood at the front of the room saying, 'Attn....' They were excitable little things and I spent a good portion of the lesson trying to implement the behaviour management techniques that I remembered. SIDE NOTE: who remembers the teacher that stood at the front of the class with their arm in the air like they had a question??? YEAH, that was me! Ah man.
Let's just say the Uni didn't prepare us for behaviour management and that is a major complaint of a lot of pre-service teachers.

I survived.

I am back at Uni for the next two weeks doing... behaviour management... don't ask why they saved it until after the fact, and then I'll be back in the high school for another two weeks. I went to the library today - looks a lot like Trent U library - and picked up some books on behaviour management. Those kids won't get me again.