Okay, okay, I'll admit it. I'm addicted. Not only to chocolate and reading and British humour, but also to working. My contract says I have to work for 24 hours, but most weeks I easily make 30, often more. Why? Because it's fun. I like my job, I like the people I work with, I like sorting out the difficult backlog and dividing projects up into smaller bits and seeing those smaller bits completed and finally the big thing completed and having happy co-workers and managers when the thing that they didn't have the time or energy for to fix is finally done. But it's more than fun, it's addictive.
I've always been that way, having things done and handing stuff in at least 2 days before the deadline. Whenever we got an assignment in which you could choose your own topic, I thought about it on the way home and e-mailed my topic to my instructor as soon as I got home. Even if it was week 3, and the essay wasn't due until week 16. And then I would finish the essay itself somewhere around week 14, when others were frantically trying to come up with a topic.
So it's the truth: I like to work. I like to be busy, to create things, to think things through, to solve problems. I'm a workaholic.
Which is nice, most of the time, especially for your co-workers and group mates. It's sometimes less nice for your blood pressure, or the amount of sleep you need, or your social life. And sometimes it's less nice for you yourself, when you get a burn out or suddenly find yourself at 2 am working on some report that isn't due until next week, realising you haven't seen your friends in over a month and haven't cleaned your toilet in even longer.
I've never found myself there, I do seem to have some sort of track-keeper that goes off when I've been working too much, and makes me relax and take my mind of things for a while. Also, as I mentioned before, I really like my job, so it doesn't always seem like 'work'.
The thing is, when I don't like doing something, it really hits me hard. When I try to find excuses not to prepare things, or arrange things, or contact people, which makes that I find myself unprepared or grumpy or sleepy at an important moment.
This was the case with my teacher training. I liked doing it while I was doing it, teaching, but the whole preparation and filling-in-forms and reading difficult didactic textbooks really wasn't my thing. So I didn't put any time, or energy, or effort into it. I just tried to wing it, which is not something you can do in front of 30 12-year-olds. At least not until you've had some practice.
So I quit. This is really weird for me, because I hardly ever quit anything studywise or workwise. Actually, make that never. But for the first time, work was costing me more energy than it was giving me. It made me grumpy and demotivated and tired and trying to avoid the work I had to do. So quitting was the only way forward.
And I feel really good about it. It feels like a weight has been lifted, and I'm finally free to move again. Ironically, the first thing I did was accept a really big assignment from my publisher, which I will have to do in my own time. But that's okay, because I like doing it. And now, I can do what I like to do 5 days a week!
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teaching. Show all posts
Friday, 12 April 2013
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
Teacher training
First of all, I am clearly not dead. Dead to the world, maybe, as we moved more than 3 weeks ago and still do not have any connection to the Internet, which is the main reason for my looooong silence here, but certainly not dead. On the contrary, I have been very very busy.
The good news is that my dissertation has officially been finalised and discussed and graded, and that I will pass my MA degree cum laude, or with honours, or whatever the equivalent English term is. Which is very nice, but mostly to me personally, as in the job market today everything that counts is experience and good ideas, and not so much whether you passed with flying colours or just scraped by.
So apart from my officially-3-days-a-week-but-actually-5-days-a-week job at the publisher's, I'm also doing a teacher training internship. This is a sort of basic course that the university offers for everyone interested in education and possibly becoming a teacher one day. It consists of a 3-hour seminar and a one-day-per-week internship at a local (or not-so-local, if you're unlucky) secondary school. I was lucky, I got a school that is a 5 minute bike ride from my home.
It is, however, kind of a weird school. As our local supervisor told us: this used to be the school you went to if you couldn't make it at any of the others. It's a bit go-happy, with more emphasis on children being happy and expressing themselves (looooots of music and art going on) than getting high grades. Kind of hippiesque. Also, very badly organised, with some students muttering about room changes and lack of information and what not by saying: "Well, you know, it's the <name of school which I won't mention>". For example, we'd prepared two lessons for last week Monday, only to hear on Friday that there were no lessons for those classes on that day, because they had the day off. Something they'd just decided, somehow, and forgot to mention. Finally, few digital advances have made it into this school, so I'm just using a blackboard and a crayon, and digital whiteboards or whatever can be found in just a few of the rooms, which are usually booked. So all great fun.
Now I'm taking the course and doing the internship to see whether teaching is for me. Many people have told me over the years that I would be good at it, that it would totally suit me, and I've always told them no. Most of my family is in education, most of them complain a lot about it, and I didn't feel like it was my thing. But then another teacher told me: "You'll never know, unless you try!" Which is really true. I've never stood in front of a class and explained something to them, or told them to get to work, or whatever. Who was I to say that it was not for me?
Well, now I have stood in front of a class and explained something to them and told them to get to work. And I'm not sure what to think of it.
Let me start by saying that at this school, there is somewhat of a pact between teachers and pupils. Teachers don't get too angry or strict, and students don't let things get out of hand too much. Everybody accepts one another, but nobody really goes out of there way (the spirit in some of these classes amazes me: there are the big-mouths who know everything and make fun of everything you try to teach them, but when someone puts their hand up and tells you they got the answer wrong or don't understand something, the big mouths just shut up and let you help them. Never ever, when I was in secondary school, did you put your hand up and tell the teacher that you didn't understand. Not in front of the rest of the class).
Now I'm wondering whether the fact that they did as I told them (even though they clearly didn't want to) is in part because of they're used to not making things too crazy and being polite to others. At the end of the lesson our coach (their real teacher) asked them what they thought about the lesson, and they told me it was good, refreshing, interesting, useful. Not sure if they really meant this, or were just being polite.
So there is a bit of insecurity there. Also, I'm not sure what I think about it myself. I don't have this whole idealistic idea of 'spreading knowledge'. I like to explain stuff to people, but mostly to interested people who've asked me about it, not to 30 bored 15-year-olds who would rather be playing video games or shopping and are constantly doing stuff on their phones.
Which I totally understand: I was exactly the same in secondary school. Which is why I'm not usually the one correcting them ("David, please put your phone away" "Ladies in the back, please pay attention" "Guys, stop chatting please"). I'm the one thinking: I would be chatting too, and there are a couple who are paying attention, who do need my help, so why not just talk to them?
Not really the educational spirit one is looking for, I think.
After the first 3 classes, I rode home and thought: This is not for me, I'm going to quit. But the thing is, I'm not a quitter. Also, I still don't know whether this is or isn't for me. I have a funny feeling it isn't, but I can't say after just 3 classes (co-taught, there is another intern standing next to me who is doing half of the teaching, which is fun and handy but also slightly annoying, as her teaching style and personality are quite different from mine, and I feel like we're clashing sometimes). So I'm going to try at least another day (3 more lessons) and see what comes out of it.
My coach, by the way, was raving. "Clear explanations, you got them to work, excellent, great first time..." Maybe this is my own insecurity or hunt for perfection, but I didn't believe her. My fellow intern did, by the way, but she is 100% convinced that she's going to be a teacher and she's going to love it, so it's easier for her. Me, I'm still not sure.
The good news is that my dissertation has officially been finalised and discussed and graded, and that I will pass my MA degree cum laude, or with honours, or whatever the equivalent English term is. Which is very nice, but mostly to me personally, as in the job market today everything that counts is experience and good ideas, and not so much whether you passed with flying colours or just scraped by.
So apart from my officially-3-days-a-week-but-actually-5-days-a-week job at the publisher's, I'm also doing a teacher training internship. This is a sort of basic course that the university offers for everyone interested in education and possibly becoming a teacher one day. It consists of a 3-hour seminar and a one-day-per-week internship at a local (or not-so-local, if you're unlucky) secondary school. I was lucky, I got a school that is a 5 minute bike ride from my home.
It is, however, kind of a weird school. As our local supervisor told us: this used to be the school you went to if you couldn't make it at any of the others. It's a bit go-happy, with more emphasis on children being happy and expressing themselves (looooots of music and art going on) than getting high grades. Kind of hippiesque. Also, very badly organised, with some students muttering about room changes and lack of information and what not by saying: "Well, you know, it's the <name of school which I won't mention>". For example, we'd prepared two lessons for last week Monday, only to hear on Friday that there were no lessons for those classes on that day, because they had the day off. Something they'd just decided, somehow, and forgot to mention. Finally, few digital advances have made it into this school, so I'm just using a blackboard and a crayon, and digital whiteboards or whatever can be found in just a few of the rooms, which are usually booked. So all great fun.
Now I'm taking the course and doing the internship to see whether teaching is for me. Many people have told me over the years that I would be good at it, that it would totally suit me, and I've always told them no. Most of my family is in education, most of them complain a lot about it, and I didn't feel like it was my thing. But then another teacher told me: "You'll never know, unless you try!" Which is really true. I've never stood in front of a class and explained something to them, or told them to get to work, or whatever. Who was I to say that it was not for me?
Well, now I have stood in front of a class and explained something to them and told them to get to work. And I'm not sure what to think of it.
Let me start by saying that at this school, there is somewhat of a pact between teachers and pupils. Teachers don't get too angry or strict, and students don't let things get out of hand too much. Everybody accepts one another, but nobody really goes out of there way (the spirit in some of these classes amazes me: there are the big-mouths who know everything and make fun of everything you try to teach them, but when someone puts their hand up and tells you they got the answer wrong or don't understand something, the big mouths just shut up and let you help them. Never ever, when I was in secondary school, did you put your hand up and tell the teacher that you didn't understand. Not in front of the rest of the class).
Now I'm wondering whether the fact that they did as I told them (even though they clearly didn't want to) is in part because of they're used to not making things too crazy and being polite to others. At the end of the lesson our coach (their real teacher) asked them what they thought about the lesson, and they told me it was good, refreshing, interesting, useful. Not sure if they really meant this, or were just being polite.
So there is a bit of insecurity there. Also, I'm not sure what I think about it myself. I don't have this whole idealistic idea of 'spreading knowledge'. I like to explain stuff to people, but mostly to interested people who've asked me about it, not to 30 bored 15-year-olds who would rather be playing video games or shopping and are constantly doing stuff on their phones.
Which I totally understand: I was exactly the same in secondary school. Which is why I'm not usually the one correcting them ("David, please put your phone away" "Ladies in the back, please pay attention" "Guys, stop chatting please"). I'm the one thinking: I would be chatting too, and there are a couple who are paying attention, who do need my help, so why not just talk to them?
Not really the educational spirit one is looking for, I think.
After the first 3 classes, I rode home and thought: This is not for me, I'm going to quit. But the thing is, I'm not a quitter. Also, I still don't know whether this is or isn't for me. I have a funny feeling it isn't, but I can't say after just 3 classes (co-taught, there is another intern standing next to me who is doing half of the teaching, which is fun and handy but also slightly annoying, as her teaching style and personality are quite different from mine, and I feel like we're clashing sometimes). So I'm going to try at least another day (3 more lessons) and see what comes out of it.
My coach, by the way, was raving. "Clear explanations, you got them to work, excellent, great first time..." Maybe this is my own insecurity or hunt for perfection, but I didn't believe her. My fellow intern did, by the way, but she is 100% convinced that she's going to be a teacher and she's going to love it, so it's easier for her. Me, I'm still not sure.
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