Saturday, November 24, 2007

Week 1

I’m only attending college every Wednesday at the moment, as I am on a two year access course in teaching (It can be done in one year, but I have family commitments and finances are limited). From 9:30-12:45 is the education and teaching module. We normally take a break around 11am to go to the toilet and grab another cup of tea – Its great being a grown-up at school, as we are allowed cups of tea in class! Half an hour for lunch goes rather fast before heading to the Study Skills lesson from 13:15-14:45. And that’s it…not very pressing at the moment, but from January I will be going to Psychology on Thursdays and Biology on Fridays, so will be attending college three days a week, which should keep me on my toes for a while.

My first week of this 2 year course was such a rush of blood to the brain, my cells almost stopped functioning, which might explain why I sat in the classroom lifeless, with a blank expression on my face for the first half hour?

It took 10 minutes to actually find the classroom (If that’s what you could call it?) behind the sports hall. It was more like a crèche, with toys, board games and video’s cluttering this tiny space - the only thing that was missing was kids! Although after breaking the ice with comments like:

Where our name tags were on the meter high coat hooks?
How nice the mural was on the wall,
And “Oh wow Peter Pan – I haven’t sent that in ages!” while scanning the video collection
I guess you could say that position was filled, although disguised in the body of a 26 year old!

I found a spare seat amongst the 15 other people crammed in, and thankfully they didn’t lean away from this peculiar person that had just invaded their class. (I am of course a newbie here, since I missed the first week of the course because of my late application). A few minutes later the tutor arrived a bid us “Good morning”. Every bone in my body wanted to burst out “Goooood mooooorning Miiiiss! In that very childish voice, but thankfully I managed to pull myself together and just utter a “Morning” instead…phew! That was close; I’m going to have to shake this childlike behaviour off quick!

It didn’t take long either, with the first task being an essay on “Why we want to be teachers?” This was quite a shock to me, since I haven’t put a pen to paper in some time and…Why do I want to be a teacher? I still haven’t quite worked it out myself, it just feels like the right thing to be doing right now, but that’s not going to fill an A4 page!

Now noticing everyone had already started writing while I was lost in my thoughts I hastily started to write…anything. And here it is…

Why be a teacher?

My first introduction to teaching was a 2 two week work experience course, while still at school myself. There I assisted the teachers in the Reception and Pre-school classes. Reception was the most enjoyable for me as the children had passed the playing and having fun stage and were beginning to actually learn skills like writing and counting.

I would like to become a Primary school teacher in the higher age range (about 7-11), although have not completely decided on my chosen subject yet.

Science is an area where I would be comfortable, preferably in Chemistry and/or Biology as when I was a student these were my favourite subject choices. This area would also prove satisfying as it has much responsibility, but the excitement of practical experiments.

Other core subjects choices would be Geography. Although I have limited knowledge in this area it was always a subject the held my attention in class and would again be an entertaining experience to teach.
Wrong word eg you are not going to learn geography to be entertained are you?

Just being a teacher would be an achievement and would have great job satisfaction. To be able to teach people to learn new skills and achieve great things in life is would be very rewarding.

Very clear, well structured, however please note my comments Marie. Good start!

(Tutors comments and marks in red)

I know…what a load of tripe eh? But in my defence I panicked!
The funny part, reading back, is my favourite subjects were actually Art and Music! Science followed closely afterwards though, but admittedly the "excitement of practical experiments" is just playing with the Bunsen burners and dissecting organs!
The geography lesson probably held my attention more for the fact the teacher (Mr Clark) was hot!
And don’t ask me what I was thinking writing that last paragraph…what an arse licker! Ah well at least the tutor was kind to me.

So after that shocker we continued the lesson with an introduction on Mr Jean Piaget (a Swiss scholar). And that’s where I’ll stop, as we continue with Piaget next week!

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