Life of a Teacher

The life of a teacher days was, at first, incredibly daunting as it is no easy task to take over someone else's classroom and it go perfectly. While I was nervous going into the task, I knew that at the end of the day it is an amazing learning opportunity for me, so I went into it with my all.

Day 1

My first day in the life of a teacher was quite difficult, as it was the last week of block 1 and I was in the middle of a cold, making it a challenge to get through the day. Aside from being sick, there were only a handful of other challenges throughout the day. The main one was trying to maintain control over the classroom, as the learners were over excited by me teaching them for the full day. While they were very eager to participate in the lessons, they also were able to lose control fairly quickly, with the class turning into a conversation pit instead of focusing on the lesson. There were a few moments in the day where I had to pause everything in order to get control over the learners back. Another challenge that came up on the first day was learners were constantly trying to get individual support and attention as I would provide them with that during the times I was not teaching. It was quite difficult to get the learners to understand that while I do the day in the life of a teacher, I don't have as much time to give them individual support. Though this stopped happening halfway through the day when the learners realized I was busy with the whole class and not able to provide individualized support.

Day 2

The second day in the life went similarly to the first, but this time I was also dealing with the excitement of the school concert the next week, and it being a Friday, so the learners were extremely difficult to maintain control over. Since it was close to the concert my teacher knew that the learners would be a bit more difficult, so we took the day to allow the learners to catch up on work in their DBE workbooks for Mathematics and English. There was quite a bit of time where my teacher had to leave the classroom to organize for the concert and other HoD duties, leaving me and the teacher's assistant with the class. It was in these moments that was the most challenging, as the learners lose all control when the main teacher isn't there. During the time when the teacher was not in the class, I had to pull out all of my classroom management skills and strategies in order to calm the chaos of 34 learners walking around, talking, and engaging in disruptive behavior. Thankfully my class had already set class leaders for the week who were very helpful in maintaining control and keeping track of learners who were badly misbehaving so there was the opportunity for redirecting and some discipline where needed. While this day was difficult, it also showed me that even on the hardest of days, I have the skills I need to go forth in my teaching career even when faced with a highly unruly and disruptive class.

Day 3

The final day in the life of a teacher went much smoother than the previous two. As I did the final day in my last week at the school, the learners were very excited for me to teach them for a full day. On this day I also taught my first physical education lesson, in which the learners were very eager to participate as they really enjoyed an outdoor drama lesson I had done with them the week before. It was a slight challenge keeping all the learners on track during the lesson as there were a few stations and the learners were getting distracted by what their peers at other stations were doing. Overall, the lesson was a success, and it gave me some more confidence in my ability to teach physical education. Part of the reason the day went quite smoothly is because the concert was done, and most of the required work to be done in the term had already been completed, meaning there was less stress for me, and less excitement from the learners. I was able to have some moments in the day where we watched stories on YouTube, as well as let the learners watch the video of their concert performance. The largest challenge of the day was keeping the learners calm while they were watching their concert performance as they were extremely excited to see how they did. This day was highly enjoyable and gave me the confirmation that I have chosen the right career path for me, and I so look forward to teaching in a classroom of my own one day, hopefully soon.