Weekly Reflection

Teaching has been an amazing experience so far. Every day I go home having learned more than I ever could have imagined. This week has been great for me for a couple of reasons. It has taught me a lot about the career path I'm interested in. It has let me experience different learning styles and how to deal with them. It has helped me with communication both with co-workers and with students. It has also helped me further understand the hidden features in a teacher's life. I have been running around to meetings, teaching classes, and helping kids out during some free blocks. The amount of planning that goes in to each day is truly spectacular. This past week Mr Sperling and I were planning for four classes, most of which are completely different subjects. This means that when planning you must take each class and plan for them separately. For me this last week has been hard because I've yet to master the art of teaching these kids. I constantly am getting frustrated with myself when a kid doesn't understand a concept. I have come to realize that teaching them a concept they don't understand by just repeating it, won't work. You need to rephrase and help them understand it in a different way. You need to have more then one way of looking at a problem or else not everyone will grasp the concept. Working with Mr Sperling has been great so far and I look forward for the week to come. I feel that I have completed most of my goals for this project except for the actual teaching of the class. I think that this week Mr Sperling and I will plan a class for me to teach on my own and create the days activity. This will be a really good test for me and it will challenge me a lot. I've said this in my blog a lot already, but the support I've been given by both Josh Norris (my mentor), Mr Sperling (my sponsor), and the faculty at LFCDS has been both inspirational and helpful. There has not been a time where I didn't feel comfortable doing this project and that is both because of the prep work at Proctor and the relaxed environment at LFCDS. I hope that I can further my understanding of the teaching world this upcoming week and really shine as a teacher myself.