So much feels about Practicum.

B) Reflect on your teaching practicum so far: What have you learned from your experience during TP? What kinds of challenges do you foresee as you develop as a Literature teacher in your specific school context?

To describe my TP experience so far as a roller coaster ride is perhaps understating it a little bit. It's kinda like being thrown on the Cylon over and over again, and each time you get thrown on it, you have some sort of amnesia and you forget just how scary the experience is. Yeah.

But one thing I really have to say is, this TP pushed me so far out of my comfort zone I'm not quite sure what my comfort zone really is anymore. To be honest, I was quite sure I am ill-suited for this job - I'm not quite adaptable, I don't like change, and I'm not the most confident speaker (haha so many understatements here) - and that is just to name a few of my "flaws". Unfortunately, I also signed on the dotted line and I guess I knew I just had to learn.

And learn I did.

After my first (informal) lesson observation, my CT asked me if I was lit-trained. Imagine how horrified I was to be asked that, after 4 years of "lit-training" - something I'm insanely proud of. She said that my content mastery wasn't so good and I really have to brush up on that. Of course I was rather offended, at first. Then I thought about it and realized that she is right: I've never been the most eloquent speaker (I'm passable in writing, but speaking? Blah.) and if I can't express myself well in a classroom, of course I'm going to look like an incompetent teacher, right? So one of the first things I learnt is to pre-empt the things I need to define in class and prepare long lists of definitions so that, in the event I have to explain a concept or a word, I don't have to rely on my incoherence but can proudly show the class a definition on the slide - and then explain (as clearly as I could) what it means contextually.

I was also told from the start that I pitch my lessons too low for my high-ability students, so I took it up a notch too many and ended up confusing my students a lot more than I meant to. Fortunately for me, I don't have much problems (I think) building rapport with my students so, although the first few classes were rather frustrating for everyone, the students haven't actually given up on me yet, and I think we're getting quite comfortable with one another now!

Have I also mentioned that my timetable is constantly changing because I'm randomly called upon to relief classes I don't know? That requires a lot of adaptability (which I'm starting to acquire) both in terms of familiarizing myself with the content as well as the various ways to interact with very different student profiles.

Well, as much as I still cannot say that I have a passion for teaching (hopefully I will develop this along the way, soon), I have my good days, and good days remind me that there is truly a purpose in teaching children, not just a subject. And bad days, well, bad days remind me that I need to pick myself up and try harder.

As for challenges that I foresee, I'm really rather unsure what is going to happen after practicum. Next week (now that my formal observations are over!), I will be planning to observe some GP lessons (outside our practicum scope) to get a feel of how GP is like. After this practicum experience, I will probably have to decide which section of the school I want to teach in and I guess the challenges in the JH and the SH would be rather different.

In the JH, I think the biggest challenge is probably to convince students that Language Arts is a subject worth doing, even if its practical benefits are not the most obvious at first glance. A lot of students are rather demoralized by the subject because they see it as difficult and not applicable to real life (a kid just asked me on Monday why they have to read between the lines because isn't it better if we just believe in what people say and not be so skeptical) - the good thing is these kids still try because they know a proper education is important, but honestly I don't think that's enough (idealistic, I know).

Over in the SH though, I might never even get to teach lit, but from what I can see, the biggest challenge is likely to be getting (some) students to see that literature is as valid a subject as econs, or math, or physics, and not something to take if and when they can't find anything else to take, or that it's something that is easy to score because it doesn't require studying, or something like that.