1st Month Down

It's hard to believe I've been teaching for one month. In retrospect it feels like less than a few days. In practice, it feels epic.

I still don't think I have a good grasp of the reality of me being a teacher yet. It's very surreal. It's like I don't believe I'm a real teacher.

There are a lot of jobs where you can sit behind your desk or stand behind a counter and not really do much all day. Interaction with people can be pretty limited in jobs like that. While there are a TON of crazy things that can happen being a teacher (and remember this is only from one month of experience), it's still a very invigorating (?) job. I go into class prepared as can be, but I also go in prepared to manage the craziest events I can imagine. I guess in that way, it's sort of a rush.

I gave my first unit test yesterday. Most of my students failed. Many didn't even show. I completely expected both. Those who did pass are the ones that show up everyday and ready to work. Good for them. Those who did not pass were the ones who mess around during class, interrupt the lesson or only show up sporadically and late. Good for them too. Hopefully they will see that failure is a result of their behavior. Although, I am aware that I have to connect the cause-effect relationship of hard work and success for them as they are unable to do it independently.

I fully expect my students to improve their grades. From what I hear, the first two tests are pretty awful. It was quite disheartening to see the Scantron sheets shoot through the reader with such low percentages printed in dot matrix red ink. I was actually amazed to see one student actually get 100%. I still need to check it to be sure. I guess since most of the questions were multiple choice, anything above a 25% is better than guessing. Anything below that and it must have been just bad chance or they were trying to fail.

One step at a time I guess. For now I'll enjoy my time off next week.