Weekly experience as a Teacher in the making!

The journey of being a student Teacher at President High School!

It has been an eventful week with the first day being very overwhelming as I find myself in an environment once well known many years ago as a scholar, but this time unknown as I enter my journey of being a teacher in the future. As many has warned me and the entire PGCE group that teaching requires a lot of planning and commitment from teachers and the entire school governing body and this was noticeable from the very first day of school. 

Throughout the week I've observed a variety of different teaching methods. From the approach being teacher centred, learner centred and teacher-learner centred. I've found that when it is mostly the teacher speaking during a lesson learners tend to get bored and start to lose their concentration. In comparison with the learner centred approach, there is a lot of freedom given to learners to participate within the lesson, they are allowed to discuss answers in groups, but this can only work if the lesson is structured, because it may result in the discussions going off point. Thus the teacher needs to take charge and facilitate the discussion at all times. I've learned this week that it is best to make learners aware of what will be expected of them within the lesson, so that this can also help keep the lesson structured.

I'm fortunate that I was placed at a multiracial school as this brings a certain dynamic into the classroom. I observed in one class where a student called the teacher a racist, because according to this student, the teacher sided with the student of his race. In this I learned to be fair to all at all times and not be placed in a situation where my actions appear to be favouring anyone. I also learned that as much as a teacher motivates a learner to do their class activities or homework the responsibility lies on the learner as there is only so much a teacher can do. There were teachers that would check the homework and then there were teachers who didn't care whether learners did their homework or not, but all teachers gave feedback on the homework.

I had a good week, after the first day everything got better, as I had to find my feet the first day, learning the names of teachers and where their classrooms are, so there was a lot of running around the first day. As the week progressed I felt more comfortable, I became more confident about that which is expected of me to do at the school. When I presented my first lesson on Friday, I've put into practice all the things we've learned during 1st semester, by being assertive the first day so that learners may know where they stand with me. And also the better you're prepared, the more confidence you'll have in the classroom when teaching. Throughout the week I was thinking about how I will deal with telling a learner to behave. I questioned whether they will respect me as the age gap between me and them is small. I look forward to see when the time comes to address a certain situation how I will deal with it. 

The lack of interest of some grade 12 learners in class got me thinking a lot, because they had an attitude of I don't care and that is scary. I approached some of them to ask why this view, then they explained that they're not planning on going to study further, or the subject(Mathematical Literacy) is too easy. I tried my best to motivate them and encourage them to think about their valuable input during class!

Hopefully next week will be a great week of learning as well!

Ulrich F van Wyk

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