Tuesday 6 January 2009

Teaching

Not surprisingly, perhaps, given yesterday, I felt very subdued today. I was fortunate enough to have an hour of non-contact time first, which gave me time to complete some vital tasks away from pupils. Then it was a KS3 day. Two lots of Year 8 ICT to start with; the first was very hard work with the pupils extremely noisy; the second (usually a harder class) much better, with some pupils producing some excellent work.
After lunch I had Year 7 Maths - which is outside my comfort zone, but I was pleased with how today's lesson went; I managed to get them to discuss ideas and I think we made some progress. That was followed by my Year 8 English class. I have them immediately after a PE lesson, and to add to the mix today they had not been able to get outside for lunch or break. However, they worked really well. We started a new topic, on World War 1 poetry, and today we were looking at initial ideas, building towards them writing a poem of their own. It went well; there was some impressive concentration and some good first thoughts. I'm quite looking forward to their work tomorrow, finishing their poems.
I ended the day feeling much more positive than I began - teaching is still the thing which gives me a buzz - though tonight I'm again feeling none too positive about myself, picking my lessons apart and only seeing the holes.

2 comments:

Catherine said...

What poems did you read?

Disillusioned said...

We haven't read any yet, but will be looking at In Flanders Field, Who Made the War, Does it Matter, Underground Dressing station, The Hero, The Sentry and Dulce et Decorum Est during the topic.