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Teaching is a rollercoaster. We have had good days and bad days too. There are
days that we teach everything that we want, days that we have to change our lesson,
and carry that lesson into the next day.
Teaching is not what I thought it would be, especially when it comes to
test-taking. We recently had what felt like the longest two weeks. We had to review for
the district test and then a whole day for the test, that week we also had Monday off. We
also kept the block day so we reviewed Tuesday and tested Wednesday and Thursday,
this was more tiring than teaching. When I was a student, testing only happened during
that class and then we just went to our next class. Being there as a teacher meant that
we were doing the same thing over and over, and although when we teach we teach the
same thing, it is different students and they have different questions, so no class is the
same, but when they are testing, there is not much differentiation. The following week
we tested again but this time it was a class test, still made the days very long. Although
I know that students need to be tested I was not expecting it to be this much. It was
draining. The instruction time during those two weeks was minimal, and it was a bit
weird for me because it was my first time seeing this side of teaching.
There are days that we think we will go through the whole lesson but we do not
and we have to carry the lesson over to the next day. The most recent happened in our
Algebra class, we thought we were going to be able to get through the two lessons, we
were only able to get through one. This means we have to re-adjust the lessons for the
rest of the week and hope that we are able to get done what we need to get done,
without having to drastically change what we have.
Although teaching is not exactly what I expected it to be, it is still what I want to
do. I am glad that I was able to have some of these experiences through ST rather than
when I am in the classroom alone because situations like these would make me feel like
I failed as a teacher. Now I know that I have to be ready for whatever rollercoaster we
have that day.