What began as a typical Wednesday at placement, quickly turned into one of the most important days of my life. Unbeknownst to me, I would leave school that day having taught a real-life, hour-long music class to a room of year 10 students, a day I never imagined would come. After years of gathering experience in various settings with children and young people, I can finally give the name Miss Adams some credit as a real teacher.
Today’s blog entry will walk you through my thoughts, feelings, regrets, and points of growth in this challenging but useful experience I had during my placement at Larne Grammar School, using the Gibbs reflective model to structure my blog.
Asked to do what!?
After enjoying placement over the last few weeks, I was finally starting to feel more relaxed, like I knew my way around our little music department. Between occasionally helping confused students, to giving out worksheets and tuning ukuleles, I played a minor role within the classes. However, at some stage, my teacher must have seen potential, because after only a couple weeks, she asked me to cover her last two periods of year 10 music class.
Now, it was emergency cover, so perhaps I was a last resort, but still a small win in my book. The opportunity to be trusted with children’s music education was not a small task and one I had been looking forward to and slightly dreading for years. Upon reflection, I will admit the dread came first and the excitement second, but it was because I was doing something I truly cared about. Teaching is what I want to do with my life, and I wanted to do it well, to prove to myself I could one day be a successful teacher.
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The Task at Hand:
With about 20 minutes of lunch left to prepare my lesson, and a half hour period of geography to stress through beforehand, I tried to remember everything I had been told so far about teaching. To project, to be engaging, to make my lesson memorable, the list goes on, and so did my worries.
My teacher provided me with what looked like a sparse lesson plan and a PowerPoint. I took a step back, tried to calm my nerves and began prepping for my lesson. Firstly, the obvious challenge I needed to address was my time frame, so I had to be smart regarding my priorities.
Usually, I am the type of person to stress and overthink, so being told last minute that I had to teach an hour-long lesson to a moody group of year 10s, last two periods on a Wednesday was both a blessing and a curse. The small-time frame didn’t allow me to overthink and overcomplicate my lesson, but it also didn’t give me much time to thoroughly plan or prepare, leaving me feeling disorganised and stressed.
For my first time teaching a proper lesson in a school, ‘winging it’ was not what I envisioned. Learning to accept that and cope with change was and is, something I still find difficult, a definitive point of improvement. Accepting that situations won’t always be within my control is a weakness of mine that was evident that day.
However, change is a challenge teachers often face and one I wasn’t going to shy away from, no matter how unprepared and out of my depth I felt (very). This experience pushed me out of my comfort zone, where real growth can and I’m pleased to say did happen.
“Change begins the moment you get the courage and decide to step outside of your comfort zone”
– Roy T Bennett
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I first familiarised myself with the learning objectives, as they are vital when ensuring that a lesson is successful and effective, I needed to know what my lesson should achieve. I then looked at the context and structure of the lesson, ensuring I had prompt questions throughout to try to keep the topic engaging. The lesson planned was to introduce the Baroque Period in the History of Music topic. Thankfully this was a topic I was well-versed in so some of the pressure was eased. I had to teach the the various instruments, the way the orchestra was set up and play a couple of recordings to demonstrate each one. I can work with technology quite well so it wasn’t too fazed about operating the computer and PowerPoint. However logging into Gmail through a SIMS computer proved somewhat difficult, an aspect of my lesson I should have left more time, but I know now for next time.
Handling my own thoughts and feelings…
I think the part I was most nervous for was to introduce myself as a teacher. I think this stems from lack of confidence. I am not the tallest, nor the most intimidating, so I definitely felt a sense of ‘imposter syndrome’ as I walked to the front of the class looking at a room of year 10 pupils not that much younger than me!
I sat down in the teacher’s chair and spoke clearly that I was covering the class. I was expecting a few wobbles but I managed surprisingly well. I planned to introduce myself as ‘Miss Adams’ and stand up and walk around, but when the time came, I chickened out and said I was covering for Teacher A’s lesson today instead of asserting my authority and stating that my name was Miss Adams. I will admit I was nervous, fear started to hit me when I heard the bell for 9th period. After feeling a bit overwhelmed I tried my best to gather myself.
Despite feeling extremely nervous and faking most of my confidence throughout the lesson, I am pleased to say that most aspects of my lesson went well. Whenever I started to teach, the words just came naturally, and I felt at ease. The pupil’s questions were easily answered, the pupils engaged with my slides and activities and seemed to enjoy the lesson. I was so encouraged after feeling so stressed, it was a relief when the lesson was over but I was proud of myself for persevering. When I saw the class the next week for another lesson (this one I had some notice for) and they remembered what I had taught them, I felt such a sense of achievement and just an overall peace about everything. That class and lesson will always be special to me.
Being realistic…
Despite all my stress and doubting, the class treated me with respect as they would their normal teacher and addressed me as ‘Miss’ anyway which seems to be the new norm. They were a lovely class and engaged well with my material. A concern I had was that the class would be too quiet and not engage with the questions or activities. But thankfully they answered them all eagerly and were happy to listen well and to learn. I understand most classes are not quite so simple and that I will face opposition, but for my first class I felt encouraged and a real sense of peace in what I was doing.
To conclude…
Upon reflection, it was an overall positive and useful experience and one I am so glad I can say that I have grown and learned from. I now know more of what is expected from me, and that I am capable of more than I think I am. Moving forward, I think I need to believe in myself more and lean into my own ability, as well as lead with confidence and remember to dismiss the class properly which is something I forgot to do and was pointed out graciously by the observing teacher. For future situations I think I would take a similar approach as before but take into account all of the advice and suggestions that teachers have kindly given me.
“You can’t be a good teacher, or even a good person for that matter, if you can’t reflect on your actions.”
– Hall and Simeral
Key lessons I have learnt from this challenging experience!
- Be confident in my own ability, even it if is fake, having a strong presence in the classroom can make all the difference when gaining respect from students.
- Be thorough in checking all the technology is working, ensuring all the links and slides are organised prior to the lesson so that everything runs smoothly.
- Remember to spell out words for the pupils, “if in doubt, spell it out.” it is better to be too careful!
- Remember to dismiss the class properly and be consistent with your teaching.
- To remember that things aren’t always going to go to plan but thats okay! It is how we deal with these obstacles and learn and grow from them is what matters, plus makes good blog content!
“We can continually aspire to give better and better lessons so that each one leaves both pupil(s) and teacher inspired, invigorated and mentally energised.”
-Paul Harris
Thanks for tuning in! – Anna🎶
References:
A quote by Roy T. Bennett, Goodreads. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7733758-you-never-change-your-life-until-you-step-out-of (Accessed March 9th 2024)
Gibbs, 1988, as cited in Jasper, 2013). (Accessed March 9th 2024)
Hall, P.A. (2015) Teach, reflect, learn: Building your capacity for success in the classroom. Alexandria, VA: ASCD. (Accessed March 9th 2024)
Harris, P. (2015) The virtuoso teacher: The Inspirational Guide for Instrumental and Singing Teachers. London: Faber Music. (Accessed March 9th 2024)