Today we were off in the morning then on all afternoon. I
was able to get some work done in the staff room before heading off to year 10
English. This class is doing an in-class next week but because they are low
literacy, they need a lot of support in the preparation of the essay. We
decided that for the day I would work individually with students on their
introduction paragraphs. I’ll admit I was a little nervous because, as I’ve
mentioned before, this class is quite energetic and not all that interested in
English, as well as being low. But I’m happy to say that my expectations were
wrong. Turns out that when the students are separated from the whole class,
they are actually quite interested in getting help. I had several students tell
me they understood it better because I had sat with them alone and explained
it. This is the kind of thing that made me want to become a teacher. It was
made all the better knowing that the students were having these ideas
themselves, all they really needed help with was a few tweaks here and there.
Unfortunately I know they don’t see themselves as smart and therefore they
don’t have the best view of themselves so I made sure to tell each one of them
how well they were really doing on their own. After this, we had our usual SSR
Link class (I truly love SSR) and then English with the year 7’s. They’re
currently working on typing up their narratives so it was a pretty easy class.
It’s amazing what you learn about twelve year olds when you give them a little
creative freedom.
Since today was Wednesday, we headed straight to the uni
after school. This week we did individual pizzas and, much to no ones surprise,
I ate mine all in one setting. I really can’t get over how good the food is.
Afterwards class was first focusing on the things we wanted to take with us. A
couple of things mentioned were patience, politeness, activeness, rewards, and environment.
The rest of the night was spent on portfolios. It was late though so I caught a
ride back with Karen and called it a night.
