I had my first experience actually teaching this semester. Just this week I finished a ten day unit at the Alternative School in town where I go to school. This school is a place for students with attendance issues at the regular schools. They come here and can complete the credits they need to graduate. Needless to say some of them come from rough home lives and school is the last thing they are thinking about.
I taught a unit in Algebra I to 9 students; sophomores, juniors, and seniors. They are really a good group of kids, but teaching them is another issue. There were times that I felt I was talking to the wall, and getting them to take notes and interact with me during instruction was like pulling teeth! I had a student freak out on me because I called on her, and I had other students snap at me because I asked them to get with their group and sit in a certain place in the room to work. I tried so hard to get them excited and get them to truly understand but it was very difficult. The worst part was that when I planned my unit, I thought I would be able to fit everything in and teach it well. Therefore, I added a bunch of things to my pre-test I gave the students. The teaching goes along with this HUGE paper/project and what we do on our pre-test we have to do on the post test to compare results and do statistical analysis and crap. Well, when I got into actually teaching them, I changed what I did from what I planned pretty quick. One of the most frustrating things was that I realized there was so much neat but useless material that I wish I could have left out. BUT- since it was on my pre-test I had to cover it. Therefore, my lessons were heavy with content and material and they were rushed too. Day to day I felt the students understood but the next day no one remembered what to do.
On a different note, I taught four days at Winchester High School last week, too. Here, I had to teach a section of the book to a Pre-Calculus class and implement different strategies. WHAT A DIFFERENCE!! These kids interacted with me, wanted to learn, took notes, asked questions and actually cared about math! The coolest part was when they asked why and I got to explain it to them and then SEE that they understood!
A job is a job, and if I can only get a job at a school like the Alternative School- I will take it. However, after my two experiences this year (before student teaching- which will be at Winchester High School) I have realized that school like Winchester is where I want to teach. I have always enjoyed doing the higher level mathematics. Now I know that I also enjoy TEACHING the higher level mathematics, too.
