Teaching is Fun?

First, I'd like to thanks anyone out there who has an unsecured network. It's because of you that I can get on the internet in the middle of Viking Hall while I'm sitting here during my "planning period". I really should be working on my midterm questions, but I've finally realized that they're one of those assignments that I'm gonna have to sit down at a table with my books and just write. I think I may also be on someone else's wireless when I'm at home, but mom assures me that since we started to get wireless that we have a signal. I'm pretty sure that she's wrong and you have to have a router to have a signal and I'm getting the neighbor's wireless, but we are paying for our own internet, so it's not like I'm mooching off of them.

Anyway, I just posted a comment on Chenoa's blog and then realized that I had already had that moment; the moment when you realize you actually love what you're doing. I was going through the papers for the assignment I gave the class I'm observing, and I found myself commenting aloud to the papers. (I don't consider that to be out of the ordinary because I commented aloud to the same papers the last time I went through them.) But, I noticed that unlike last time, my comments were more along the lines of "yeah", "good", and "that's it" rather than "no", "almost", and "why do I bother". I think when I reviewed with them exactly what I wanted and clearly spelled out my expectations, they got it. There are still 2-3 who didn't change anything, and barely did the assgnment to a comprehensive level to begin with, but I have no qualms with giving a kid a grade they deserve for not trying. My one big fear in teaching is that I'm going to have a kid who fails an assignment, not because they don't care, but because I didn't adequately teach him or her.

I'm using the lesson that I taugh them as my lesson plan to turn in for class. Now that I've taught it, I know what I need to tweak, change, and just eliminate to better reach the class. Even with all of my education classes reminding me over and over again, I forget that not everyone responds well to the lecture, take notes, and do a worksheet to show me what you've learned method. I also learned that I think too highly of the student's abilities, probably because it pisses me off so much when a teacher underestimates mine. I guess it could be irritating to have your teacher overestimate your abilities too though, because most of the kids had no idea what I expected from them until I spelled it out for them. Hmm...maybe that might teach me something about tolerance for teachers who underestimate my abilities. Maybe they've grown accustomed to having to 'dumb down the lesson' so much that they forget that some people are capable of individual, intelligent thought. Ok enough breakthroughs for now. (Especially since as I'm writing, I'm making faces and the kids are looking at me funny.)