Friday, November 7, 2008

Realizing the reality

As the weeks pass I have had more and more experience with teaching. Well, teaching my peers that is. I sometimes feel really awkward when teaching my peers because I get the feeling that the separation between teacher and student is not yet there, and it wont be until the journey is complete. However, it is amazing how quickly I am getting comfortable with teaching. I recently taught a few lessons on the unit of wrestling. I wont lie, I was intimidated at first because each lesson was being taught in groups of 2. Each student was expected to teach 7 minutes each. My partner ended up changing his major and I had to teach a 15 minute lesson by myself. I never really had any experience doing something like this before so it was a big deal at first to me. I remember the first day that I taught this lesson. I was pretty nervous but I figured that since I was here to learn, I would rather make mistakes now than when I was in front of my own class. Anyway it went off rather well. I was surprised at my professors reaction and the reaction of my peers. I couldn't believe how 15 minutes flew by. I had a detailed lesson plan of the things I wanted to cover throughout my lesson and I thought that by working quickly I would be able to get through all of it. I didn't even get close. I got very into my lesson. for some reason, even though it was only a teaching unit for my peers it was really important to me that they learn the lessons I had planned. I guess because it took me a long time to make sure that everything was planned out the right way with the right progressions and the right amount of time spent on each part of the lesson. I really am beginning to think that I am throughly understanding the skills and the techniques and pretty much all of the qualities it takes to be an effective and well appreciated teacher. I only hope that as time goes on I am able to utilize the feedback given by my fellow physical education majors in an effort to further my abilities and increase my teaching skills to their pinnacles. Believe me when I say that history IS in the making and with the right mindset and the work ethic and will power, it is only a matter of time until a dream becomes a reality.

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