Alright, I have now officially completed my first week of teaching and boy are my arms tired! It has definitely been an interesting week because obviously this is my first time on the other side of the fence – I’ve been a student for about 18 years and suddenly I’m thrust into the position of teacher and what a difference you see right away. I first must give credit to all the teachers that not only made learning fun but also came up with creative ways to get students involved. We have a lot of spare computer parts lying around Chanel College that were not being put to use, so one of the things I created was a ‘demo machine’ of sorts. It’s the setup of a computer, only turned around so the kids could see what the backside of the computer looks like. I put one demo machine a piece in the two labs we have running right now. Then I finally started on something that I said I would do during my ’90 day work plan’ which was come up with a dictionary of computer terms in Samoan and posted them on the board in the back of the room. One of the last creative things I did before I actually started this week of teaching was put the lab rules on the front door of all the computer labs so that no one could say ‘Oh, I didn’t know that rule’. I have seen more people stop in front of the signs when the door is open (it’s on the side of the door that faces inward) in order to read what it says – even if they don’t have a computer class. That’s been real interesting. But we now come to the part where I actually had to start teaching on Monday and I was definitely nervous. Once I got started, though, the knowledge from myself just started flowing and I became more comfortable. One thing I did notice, that as a student I never noticed before, is that it can get pretty boring saying the same things all day long just to different students. I teach 5 computer classes a day, but I get two periods off which is a nice trade-off. At the beginning of the week, a lot of the regular teachers who were asked to teach computer classes were very nervous and hesitant but towards the end of the week everyone seemed to be fine (once I gave them all teaching guides to read and prepare) so that’s going along well which means I don’t have to worry about the junior classes as much. This week we just went over a few of the things that computers do and discussed the various ports on the back of the computer. On Thursday, for most of the classes, I had them actually put together a computer (meaning plugging in the various peripherals) just to spice it up and to get the kids thinking instead of relying on their notes. On Friday, I gave them a quiz over what we went over this past week and after 18 years I finally realize the point of tests. It took me traveling halfway around the world to get to this point but man – tests are actually good for something, who would have thought.
As the title indicates, I definitely feel like I’m growing up here. Never thought it would get to this point – but I actually feel like an adult and I can put myself in the shoes of all the teachers that I’ve gone through in my years of schooling. It’s hard to keep students interests and you definitely can see when a student is dozing off in class when they think no one is watching them – something that we’ve all done at some point. The good thing is, in every class I have students that are really interested in computers and they definitely keep my energy up throughout the day when some classes start to drag or I just get mentally tired of talking about computers (bet you thought that would never happen, Mom).
Anyways, it’s been a long week – guess what, teachers also look forward to Friday as much as students! But I feel more confident about teaching now then I did at the beginning of the week so progress has been made! So now I’m going to attempt to enjoy the weekend (tests have already been graded) and fix my bike tire now that the ark weather has left. L8r.
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