Expierential Practicum
After surviving my first teaching practicum, I learned that teaching in a grade one class is like a rollercoaster ride. The anticipation of entering the classroom on the first day, the knots in your stomach, and the should I or shouldn’t I feeling as you walk down the hall. The adrenaline is pumping through your veins, and the atmosphere is full of electricity. This practicum experience showed me that being a grade one teacher is both exhilarating and exhausting in the best possible way. As a young teacher candidate, I felt that I was ready to take on the next three weeks; Pinterest was my best friend as I had a plethora of ideas planned. However, I soon learned that the idea doesn’t always live up to the application. This is exactly what I experienced, and looking back, I am happy that this lesson didn’t go 100% according to plan. During my second week, I planned a math lesson in which the students would demonstrate their understanding of how we measure, what we can use to measure and why measurement is important. I was excited as I had prepared individual cups with jelly beans for each student to measure their Jack and the Beanstalk characters. However, I quickly learned that introducing jellybeans as a non-conventional measurement tool would cause some distractions. I did not consider the overwhelming amount of overstimulation these jellybeans would inflict. The addition of bright and aromatic candies added to an already exciting lesson. This put my classroom management to the test. Admittedly I was screaming on the inside that this super fun idea I had was going awry. All I could do was take a deep breath and regroup with the students. I successfully got the class back on track; I explained that I was just as excited as them and to get to the part of the lesson where we could eat the jelly beans we had to measure. These explicit and honest instructions helped the class successfully complete the lesson. Going back to my comparison that teaching is like a roller coaster, I blacked out during the 20-minute lesson and was only able to put the memories back together after the fact. Regardless, like a roller coaster, the ride is short, sweet, and usually heart-pounding, but all I want to do is do it all over again when it comes to an end. I hope that I never want to get off the rollercoaster for the rest of my teaching career.
