The practical component of the first semester of my graduate diploma was tricky at first. My first lesson teaching a year ten English class was pretty bad. It was a lesson on delivering legal summations. The students had to do their own in a few weeks and, while they'd written some good summations, their delivery needed a lot of work. And so, it would seem, did mine.
I had always been okay at speeches. Beyond the oral presentations required in English and various other subjects, I had also been required to speak in front of the school quite regularly and was a member of the debating team (yes, I was that cool). Even though people told me I was a good public speaker, I was always nervous before, and exceptionally nervous during, every speech. I remember one inter-school debate during which my legs were shaking so vigorously that I felt I must have appeared, to the casual observer, to be dancing. You know, a bit of interpretive dance to hammer home my point. Those seemed like five of the longest minutes of my life. Afterwards, I was relieved to learn that no-one had even noticed my legs shaking -- thank you, long pants -- but it made me hyper-aware of appearing nervous from then on.
Standing at the front of that classroom with thirty sets of eyes (plus the two belonging to my supervising teacher, who was taking notes) instantly turned me into somewhat of a mouse. I was hardly the shining example of an eloquent and powerful public speaker I needed to be. This was compounded by the fact that technology failed me and the video clip I had intended to show the class was refused entry by that metaphorical, meat-headed bouncer, Microsoft Windows. When it came time for the class to practise what I'd shown them, few of them actually delivered the lines I supplied them with any power or conviction. But that was my failure, not theirs.
I left that class feeling deflated and like I'd messed up about as badly as I could have. The thought of having to stand up in front of that class again was too panic-inducing to entertain. I don't remember anything else about that day other than feeling less-than-hopeful about my future as an educator. For the next couple of weeks, I basically had it in my head that the kids were smarter than I was and that I was about as rubbish a teacher as there ever was. All the worry and work I was putting in outside of school hours didn't seem to be translating into results in the classroom. My supervisor told me that I was doing okay but I really didn't feel terribly successful.
Somehow, little by little, week by week, I began to feel more confident and capable standing at the front of the classroom. I was less scared of the kids, which was probably a good start. By the end of the term I felt like I was doing okay. My second semester university classes came and went and then began the second (and final) practical component of the course. And it went exactly the same way as the first had. No confidence to start with, gradually building, at the end of the six weeks, to me feeling like I could actually be a competent teacher.
Having completed the course and reflected on my experience, I must say that the placements were harder than actually being a teacher. And by that I mean this: with practise, standing in front of a class of students is not that difficult. But having another teacher there watching you and taking notes makes it that much harder for someone like me, an over-thinker. I found that I'd second guess myself all the time and assume I was doing something wrong. And it's not as though I had issues with my supervising teacher at all -- we got on really well, he was good at giving constructive feedback and really supportive of me -- but the thought of someone there evaluating my every move just about did my head in. It made me worry excessively about everything to the point where I think I actually stopped seeing the big picture: that I was there to teach stuff to people. It was no more complicated than that. The constant worry over every little element and every possible thing that could go wrong was just a distraction. And the worry about being constantly assessed and evaluated was just stupid.
I'm not sure I took that in consciously. Not then, anyway. Now that I'm -- sometimes -- working as a teacher (without someone sitting at the back of the room taking notes) I find it easier to just get on with teaching the class and not worry so much. I would even say that I feel comfortable in front of any class I'm given. So that's good, I suppose. I try to think about how I was feeling on that first day of my placement when I was convinced I just wasn't cut out to be a teacher. It's nice to think that I've made some progress.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Friday, June 18, 2010
Learning
I came home from the US at the end of 2008 with a vague plan for the future. Actually, I sort of had it before I left but nothing came together until the end of the year. I had decided that, since I enjoyed working with kids at the summer camp I had worked at for a few years, I would consider teaching as a career path. For too long I was troubled by the fact that I wasn't really contributing anything to society and had no real qualifications or skills. So, during the 2008 trip, I told myself that it would be my last holiday for a while and when I got home it would be 'time to grow up'.
A lot of the kids and counselors at the camp would ask, at the end of every summer, 'are you going to be back next year?' Even at the very beginning of the summer people would ask everyone what their plans were for the following year. Because the camp season only lasts somewhere around eight weeks, I suspect people just want to know that next year will be a continuation of this year just as this year flowed on from the last and the same familiar faces have returned to do it all over again. My answer to that question was, invariably, that I would try to put off growing up for another year and make it one more time. But I couldn't really say that this time. Instead, I said that I wanted to but didn't think that I'd be able to put off growing up any longer. As much as I loved the camp experience I just couldn't hang around at home doing odd jobs for eight or ten months waiting for the next summer to roll around.
So I returned home in October and applied for a couple of education courses. With my earlier studies already under my belt -- as more-or-less useless as that degree was in the real world -- I just had to do a one-year graduate diploma in order to qualify as a teacher. In all honesty, the fact that the course was so brief was one of the biggest reasons I was giving it so much consideration. The thought of going back to uni terrified me as I didn't think I'd be able to make a go of it. I'd been out of the system for about six or seven years. At least if it was only a year I could see the light at the end of the tunnel right from the start. And even if I hated it I could suffer through a year. I hoped.
A lot of the kids and counselors at the camp would ask, at the end of every summer, 'are you going to be back next year?' Even at the very beginning of the summer people would ask everyone what their plans were for the following year. Because the camp season only lasts somewhere around eight weeks, I suspect people just want to know that next year will be a continuation of this year just as this year flowed on from the last and the same familiar faces have returned to do it all over again. My answer to that question was, invariably, that I would try to put off growing up for another year and make it one more time. But I couldn't really say that this time. Instead, I said that I wanted to but didn't think that I'd be able to put off growing up any longer. As much as I loved the camp experience I just couldn't hang around at home doing odd jobs for eight or ten months waiting for the next summer to roll around.
So I returned home in October and applied for a couple of education courses. With my earlier studies already under my belt -- as more-or-less useless as that degree was in the real world -- I just had to do a one-year graduate diploma in order to qualify as a teacher. In all honesty, the fact that the course was so brief was one of the biggest reasons I was giving it so much consideration. The thought of going back to uni terrified me as I didn't think I'd be able to make a go of it. I'd been out of the system for about six or seven years. At least if it was only a year I could see the light at the end of the tunnel right from the start. And even if I hated it I could suffer through a year. I hoped.
Early in the new year I received my acceptance letter and a short time after that I signed up for my classes. As the orientation date approached I became more nervous, more anxious, and more genuinely sure that I was making a huge mistake. I could, quite vividly, remember how I felt in the final semester of my undergraduate studies. Sick. Nauseous. Dizzy with anxiety. The thought of being paralysed by feeling inadequate, inept and incapable of anything made me exceptionally apprehensive about going back to school and wonder what ever made me think it would be a good idea.
If anything, it was my stubbornness that saved me. I just don't let myself quit that easily. Even if I want to. Especially if I want to. I don't know whether I like to make myself suffer in order to punish myself or whether I know that, ultimately, whatever lies ahead of me will benefit me in the long run but once I've signed myself up for something, there really is no going back. And so it was with this. Attending the orientation didn't help. Actually, it made me feel worse. While the academic and administrative staff seemed friendly, they went on and on about how much work the course involved. 'Intensive' is how they all described it, going on to make jokes about how we will all now be occupied during the previously 'unharnessed' time between the hours of midnight and two AM. While I'm not afraid of hard work, I was afraid of being immediately swamped with mountains of work I was incapable of doing. And that was my mindset right from the outset, that I would be incapable of the work. This was, after all, postgraduate study now and it would be far harder than everything I had done up to that point. And I was lucky to even get through the undergrad stuff. I envisaged thousands of pages of reading, endless hours of lectures filled with the driest theoretical concepts that in no way related to the practical considerations of day-to-day teaching, and writing endless essays requiring hundreds of pedantically formatted references where stray commas and semi-colons were punishable by death. And that was before the practical component of the course even came into it. Yes, I was certainly not looking forward to being thrown in the deep end because I was almost certain that I would drown.
As is probably true in most instances when I've felt like this, I really needn't have been concerned. Although the word 'intensive' had been bandied about with wild abandon during the orientation -- and continued to be overused for weeks and months to come -- this was not my experience. While I wouldn't say it was easy, it certainly wasn't hard. Academically, not that much was expected at all. Few essays, few exams. There weren't even that many contact hours. And because the semester was split between classes and practicum, the first semester classes wrapped up inside of the first two months.
During that time I had done the fairly insignificant amount of reading required by the classes I was taking (even though half of the cohort really didn't seem to care that much about such trivialities) which, curiously, I felt didn't really benefit me a great deal. For instance, after weeks of classes for one particular subject which 'required' a hundred-ish dollar textbook we hadn't even cracked open yet, one of my fellow students asked the lecturer whether there was anything specific we needed to know from the text in order to prepare for the exam. The response: 'No, just read the text book.' Were there any particular parts of the book we should look at? We asked for clarification. 'No, just read the text book.' Perhaps it was that the text book had not even been mentioned in the six or so weeks leading up to this moment that puzzled me so much. Or that, apparently, no particular parts of the book were any more or less relevant to what we were doing -- we just needed to know the whole lot. It could have been that we only learned this rather important information fairly incidentally by asking as we were walking out of the final tutorial prior to the exam. Or it could have been the irony of this happening within a compulsory class supposedly designed to teach us how to be competent educators. In any event, this both amused and annoyed me. I subsequently read the whole book (it was only a couple of hundred pages) and took copious notes which were pretty much irrelevant to the content of the exam. Said exam, again in a rather curious turn of events, seemed only tangentially related to the content of the lectures and tutorials I had diligently attended throughout the semester. But, by that point, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.
The important thing was that I had made it through the first semester of classes and was fairly confident that I had at least passed. I had shown myself that I could do it. Surely I would, therefore, be the poster child of confidence in all facets of my life from that moment on? That's probably overstating it. Just a bit. And besides, that's not my style. Anyway, the coursework was only the first half of the first semester. Still awaiting me was six weeks of practicum at a high school where I was to apply my newly-acquired knowledge of the way the education system functions.
As is probably true in most instances when I've felt like this, I really needn't have been concerned. Although the word 'intensive' had been bandied about with wild abandon during the orientation -- and continued to be overused for weeks and months to come -- this was not my experience. While I wouldn't say it was easy, it certainly wasn't hard. Academically, not that much was expected at all. Few essays, few exams. There weren't even that many contact hours. And because the semester was split between classes and practicum, the first semester classes wrapped up inside of the first two months.
During that time I had done the fairly insignificant amount of reading required by the classes I was taking (even though half of the cohort really didn't seem to care that much about such trivialities) which, curiously, I felt didn't really benefit me a great deal. For instance, after weeks of classes for one particular subject which 'required' a hundred-ish dollar textbook we hadn't even cracked open yet, one of my fellow students asked the lecturer whether there was anything specific we needed to know from the text in order to prepare for the exam. The response: 'No, just read the text book.' Were there any particular parts of the book we should look at? We asked for clarification. 'No, just read the text book.' Perhaps it was that the text book had not even been mentioned in the six or so weeks leading up to this moment that puzzled me so much. Or that, apparently, no particular parts of the book were any more or less relevant to what we were doing -- we just needed to know the whole lot. It could have been that we only learned this rather important information fairly incidentally by asking as we were walking out of the final tutorial prior to the exam. Or it could have been the irony of this happening within a compulsory class supposedly designed to teach us how to be competent educators. In any event, this both amused and annoyed me. I subsequently read the whole book (it was only a couple of hundred pages) and took copious notes which were pretty much irrelevant to the content of the exam. Said exam, again in a rather curious turn of events, seemed only tangentially related to the content of the lectures and tutorials I had diligently attended throughout the semester. But, by that point, I probably shouldn't have been surprised.
The important thing was that I had made it through the first semester of classes and was fairly confident that I had at least passed. I had shown myself that I could do it. Surely I would, therefore, be the poster child of confidence in all facets of my life from that moment on? That's probably overstating it. Just a bit. And besides, that's not my style. Anyway, the coursework was only the first half of the first semester. Still awaiting me was six weeks of practicum at a high school where I was to apply my newly-acquired knowledge of the way the education system functions.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Not Quite Anonymous
When I began writing this blog at the beginning of 2008, nobody knew who I was. No-one who read the blog, that is, had any idea of my identity. There was something so liberating about that. I was able to just be myself and say whatever I was thinking or feeling at the time. I think that allowed me to see myself from the outside, almost as if what I wrote was an explanation to myself about who I really was. Perhaps I thought that I really needed to know.
I think that, back then, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was not just a product of the experiences I recounted but that I was destined never to be more than the loser described therein. And I don't think I saw that at the time. I think that I believed that what I was doing at the time was cathartic when it was probably in some ways the exact opposite: it was me framing myself as the person I didn't want to be. And perhaps trapping myself inside that frame in the process.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. Am I wondering whether I know myself better now than I did two years ago? I'd like to think that is beyond doubt. Lots has changed during that time. I feel like in some ways I can read what had once been so painful to write with a sense of detachment. Some of what I had written was, back when I first wrote it, difficult for me to reread, let along imagine someone who knew me reading it. I didn't want the pity or the patronising that would, I felt, inevitably follow should I share the musings of my anonymous self with a real friend. I think that I felt like if I ever lost that anonymity it would take away the one outlet I had, that one place where I could truly express myself without fear of judgment.
That anonymity is no more. A little while ago I shared my identity with someone I know in the real world. That person became the one and only person to know that I have a blog and be allowed to read what I had written. Whereas once I found comfort in the fact that no-one knew who I was, now I find it equally -- or perhaps more -- comforting that someone does know. Surely, though, I can no longer expose my thoughts and feelings like I once did? Or so I would have thought. It's strange because, back then, I imagined if anyone found out who I was I would self-censor and lose the freedom that anonymity had afforded me. But that's not how I feel. I don't want to do that at all. I'm not really sure what to make of that. But it feels like a good thing.
I think that, back then, I had resigned myself to the fact that I was not just a product of the experiences I recounted but that I was destined never to be more than the loser described therein. And I don't think I saw that at the time. I think that I believed that what I was doing at the time was cathartic when it was probably in some ways the exact opposite: it was me framing myself as the person I didn't want to be. And perhaps trapping myself inside that frame in the process.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. Am I wondering whether I know myself better now than I did two years ago? I'd like to think that is beyond doubt. Lots has changed during that time. I feel like in some ways I can read what had once been so painful to write with a sense of detachment. Some of what I had written was, back when I first wrote it, difficult for me to reread, let along imagine someone who knew me reading it. I didn't want the pity or the patronising that would, I felt, inevitably follow should I share the musings of my anonymous self with a real friend. I think that I felt like if I ever lost that anonymity it would take away the one outlet I had, that one place where I could truly express myself without fear of judgment.
That anonymity is no more. A little while ago I shared my identity with someone I know in the real world. That person became the one and only person to know that I have a blog and be allowed to read what I had written. Whereas once I found comfort in the fact that no-one knew who I was, now I find it equally -- or perhaps more -- comforting that someone does know. Surely, though, I can no longer expose my thoughts and feelings like I once did? Or so I would have thought. It's strange because, back then, I imagined if anyone found out who I was I would self-censor and lose the freedom that anonymity had afforded me. But that's not how I feel. I don't want to do that at all. I'm not really sure what to make of that. But it feels like a good thing.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Back. And Forward.
After an absence of two years (more or less to the day - I didn't quite feel like making a post yesterday on the two year anniversary of my last post) I am back. As for what happened in the interim: I will fill in the blanks along the way in future posts.
When I made my last post I had just started a four-month working holiday in the US. It was a tiring, fun, eventful and memorable summer and I returned to Australia in October of 2008 feeling like I needed to start doing something with my life. I didn't want to let the usual post-travel depression and subsequent rut set it. And, for once, I didn't.
For a long time I forgot about this blog. For the first few months I literally forgot about it. Like completely forgot that I used to write it. I guess being out of the habit of writing daily let the idea slip from my mind. And then later, when I did remember, I chose not to go back to writing it. I think that was partly because I felt that dwelling on the past was not going to be constructive for me and I knew that, inevitably, I would just use it as a way to bring myself down. That was one thing I really was good at. Also, I sort of felt like I didn't have anything interesting to say anymore.
Not so long ago, I re-read all the posts I had made and tentatively decided to resume posting -- at least semi-regularly -- on the two year anniversary of the last post I made. Enough time has passed and I feel like I am ready to start writing again.
Here goes.
When I made my last post I had just started a four-month working holiday in the US. It was a tiring, fun, eventful and memorable summer and I returned to Australia in October of 2008 feeling like I needed to start doing something with my life. I didn't want to let the usual post-travel depression and subsequent rut set it. And, for once, I didn't.
For a long time I forgot about this blog. For the first few months I literally forgot about it. Like completely forgot that I used to write it. I guess being out of the habit of writing daily let the idea slip from my mind. And then later, when I did remember, I chose not to go back to writing it. I think that was partly because I felt that dwelling on the past was not going to be constructive for me and I knew that, inevitably, I would just use it as a way to bring myself down. That was one thing I really was good at. Also, I sort of felt like I didn't have anything interesting to say anymore.
Not so long ago, I re-read all the posts I had made and tentatively decided to resume posting -- at least semi-regularly -- on the two year anniversary of the last post I made. Enough time has passed and I feel like I am ready to start writing again.
Here goes.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Work
Firstly, my apologies to Kylie for not posting one last time before I left home bound for the USA and a much anticipated working holiday. I just got far too busy to even think about sitting at the computer and typing out a post.
I've been in America for about a week now and so far I'm having a great time. I'm really going to try to get the most out of the next three months and come home with a different perspective. I'm having a great time so far.
My time on a computer is very limited right now but soon I should have more time to e-mail and blog so I'll post as regularly as I can. I hope that everyone reading this (at least two people, as far as I know) is happy and healthy.
I've been in America for about a week now and so far I'm having a great time. I'm really going to try to get the most out of the next three months and come home with a different perspective. I'm having a great time so far.
My time on a computer is very limited right now but soon I should have more time to e-mail and blog so I'll post as regularly as I can. I hope that everyone reading this (at least two people, as far as I know) is happy and healthy.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Failed
My computer is dead. And if that wasn't bad enough, the problem is a failed hard drive. That means all the photos I've taken and all the various pieces of writing I've done over the past few, I hate to say it, years have disappeared into oblivion. Let that be a lesson to anyone who reads this: back-up all your stuff. I've been meaning to back everything up for months and months just in case something like this happened but I never actually got around to it. I won't make that mistake again.
Luckily I still do the majority of my writing (what little writing I actually do) the old-fashioned way and my numerous scribble-filled notebooks and folders full of scraps of paper were in no way affected by the technical glitch that struck down my computer. All my digital photos weren't so lucky. But I guess that's just one of those things.
In addition, having no computer meant relying on friends' computers to check my e-mail and, since no-one I know in the real world knows about my blog, I haven't risked posting from any computer other than my own. Having now temporarily borrowed a computer until mine can be reanimated I figure I'd better be true to my word and actually keep posting on this blog of mine, if only so that I can say that I did.
My travel plans are very nearly set in concrete and if all things go to plan I should be arriving on US soil in less than two weeks. In other news, I've noticed a real, measurable change in how I've been feeling these last few weeks. It's a change for the better. I'll explore than in a future post.
Luckily I still do the majority of my writing (what little writing I actually do) the old-fashioned way and my numerous scribble-filled notebooks and folders full of scraps of paper were in no way affected by the technical glitch that struck down my computer. All my digital photos weren't so lucky. But I guess that's just one of those things.
In addition, having no computer meant relying on friends' computers to check my e-mail and, since no-one I know in the real world knows about my blog, I haven't risked posting from any computer other than my own. Having now temporarily borrowed a computer until mine can be reanimated I figure I'd better be true to my word and actually keep posting on this blog of mine, if only so that I can say that I did.
My travel plans are very nearly set in concrete and if all things go to plan I should be arriving on US soil in less than two weeks. In other news, I've noticed a real, measurable change in how I've been feeling these last few weeks. It's a change for the better. I'll explore than in a future post.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Talk
I am all talk. And, quite ironically, that is evidenced by the fact that I haven't been talking at all. I keep saying that I want to post on this blog but then I leave it weeks between posts and almost never even log in to my account.
My sincere apologies for not complying with Kylie's polite request to write a post for her to read on her birthday. I am sorry. Hopefully, even though this one is a day late (I haven't checked my account for at least a week so I just got the request now) it will be acceptable.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLIE!!!
Perhaps it's even more strange that I haven't been posting on this blog over the past few weeks since I've actually been doing things worthy of posting about. When I was just sitting at home and moping around I would write long e-mails about this or that but never actually get out into the world and do anything. Over the past two weeks or so I really have been trying to live a little.
I have had some success with the internet dating. I've met a few really nice girls (and that one strange one with the boyfriend) and I'm just seeing what happens. At the very least I think I've made a few new friends. But the best thing to come out of the whole experience is that I now have a little more confidence when talking to girls. Not a great deal but more than I used to have. And I'm also getting a few compliments about how I'm a nice guy and a few of the girls were surprised I didn't have a girlfriend and that I've been single for so long - so that was nice to hear. It sure beats what I've been telling myself for the past few years.
I am also starting to sort my life out in terms of making plans for the rest of the year and beyond. I am taking one more overseas trip - it's happening within the next few weeks and I'll be away for a few months - before I start settling down. Soon I'll be back in the USA for another northern summer of camp fun. That's not Village People-style camp fun, but another couple of months of working in a summer camp. When I get back home I'm going to try to motivate myself to stay busy and I plan to go back to university next year. It's not set in stone just yet but it is a plan and I haven't had one of those for a while.
Over the next few days and weeks I'll try to write about some of my dating stories. None of them are terribly exciting but it's been great for me to get out there and meet some new people. And it's probably more interesting than hearing me whinge about being alone and miserable.
My sincere apologies for not complying with Kylie's polite request to write a post for her to read on her birthday. I am sorry. Hopefully, even though this one is a day late (I haven't checked my account for at least a week so I just got the request now) it will be acceptable.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY KYLIE!!!
Perhaps it's even more strange that I haven't been posting on this blog over the past few weeks since I've actually been doing things worthy of posting about. When I was just sitting at home and moping around I would write long e-mails about this or that but never actually get out into the world and do anything. Over the past two weeks or so I really have been trying to live a little.
I have had some success with the internet dating. I've met a few really nice girls (and that one strange one with the boyfriend) and I'm just seeing what happens. At the very least I think I've made a few new friends. But the best thing to come out of the whole experience is that I now have a little more confidence when talking to girls. Not a great deal but more than I used to have. And I'm also getting a few compliments about how I'm a nice guy and a few of the girls were surprised I didn't have a girlfriend and that I've been single for so long - so that was nice to hear. It sure beats what I've been telling myself for the past few years.
I am also starting to sort my life out in terms of making plans for the rest of the year and beyond. I am taking one more overseas trip - it's happening within the next few weeks and I'll be away for a few months - before I start settling down. Soon I'll be back in the USA for another northern summer of camp fun. That's not Village People-style camp fun, but another couple of months of working in a summer camp. When I get back home I'm going to try to motivate myself to stay busy and I plan to go back to university next year. It's not set in stone just yet but it is a plan and I haven't had one of those for a while.
Over the next few days and weeks I'll try to write about some of my dating stories. None of them are terribly exciting but it's been great for me to get out there and meet some new people. And it's probably more interesting than hearing me whinge about being alone and miserable.
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