Key moments in my learning journey First year

Key moments in my learning journey

First year – “Discovery” I came into my teaching degree straight from high school, and for the first few weeks I spent quite a bit of time getting oriented – getting to know lecturers and classmates, and forming a support system at home. Because I have always been a pretty introverted person, and am generally not very good at asking for help this took a few weeks. In the meantime, I adjusted to the less structured atmosphere of university and tried – unsuccessfully at first – to keep up with readings and assessments. My first placement was at Morwell Park Primary School, in a grade 1/2 class. Thinking back, it was pretty lucky that I was placed at Morwell Park in my first year, as I have yet to obtain my licence, and I was living not far from the school at the time. As such I was able to walk to and from placement every day. There is not much else to say about my first placement, as its focus was on observation, and nothing particularly memorable happened during my time there. My second placement in first year had me working with Prep students and a mentor only a few years older than myself. This round, I was allowed to help more with administrative tasks, such as organising readers for the students and had the chance to read with the children individually, and as a class, in addition to my observation. I remember talking to my mentor as she set herself up to teach students how to sew during lunchtime. Her dedication to help students outside of her classroom learn a skill which schools do not offer as part of the curriculum struck me as very admirable and something to emulate in my future practice.

Second year – “Reminiscence” During my second year I had to submit a request for placement variation due to the fact that I was placed in a school inaccessible by bus. The form was submitted as soon as our placements were confirmed, but unfortunately I only found out about the school I would be attending the day before placement began. Luckily, I already knew the school, as I had attended it myself from 1999 -2006. Going back to Churchill Primary School was an interesting experience. There were many teachers there who had been at the school during my time as a student, and there were also a few newer staff members I had never met before. This was both an advantage, as I was able to orient myself within the school relatively quickly, and a serious drawback, as some staff members did not seem to take me seriously as a potential educator. For my first placement at Churchill Primary, I was placed in a 5/6 composite. The thing I remember most about being in 5/6 M is a writing lesson I took. The focus was on handwriting, because the students all had pretty terrible handwriting for their age group. My mentor gave me resources to help me create writing prompts for the students, and I went around checking their handwriting. Back then I didn’t really have an idea of what to look for beyond general neatness, but I remember that at the closing of the lesson, one of the students asked if they could have more lessons like the one I had taken. Despite the fact that there were (and still are) many things which I needed to work on and improve, that one moment has become a precious memory and a great motivator to improve my teaching.

The second placement at Churchill Primary saw me in a straight grade 2 class with two very different mentors. My male mentor, Mr. D, was the main teacher, and acted as maths coordinator, while my female mentor, Mrs. D, was the acting vice-principal – provided memory serves. Mrs. D was only in the classroom 2 days of the week, but her teaching and mentoring provided a great contrast to his. Mr. D was perfectly willing to let me adopt whatever approach I chose to teaching the students, and provided me with some great resources about the school’s teaching approach and for lessons. Meanwhile Mrs. D was extremely strict, and planned out lessons for me, dismissing my ideas by commenting that I did not know the students. While I understand her reluctance to hand her class over to another, and she did have a point about my lack of knowledge, in hindsight her comment landed a blow on my self-esteem as a teacher, and I would have appreciated it had she used her knowledge of the class to give me guidance instead of taking over.

Third year – “The Wobbles” In reality, most of my experience as a student-teacher could be seen as a case of ‘the wobbles’. It has been a constant struggle to learn through observation, experimentation and mishaps. By third year, I had a pretty accurate picture of my weaknesses: I was very timid at the beginnings of placement, and every time I took a break from teaching I became increasingly more nervous. There were also practical areas which needed improvement, such as my behaviour management, assessment and differentiation. For my third year I was placed at Sacred Heart Primary in Morwell. Sacred Heart is probably the favourite of all my placements. The school was small, like Churchill Primary and Morwell Park, but felt much smaller. There were only about 120 students and 20 staff members. Because it had been such a long time since I had last taught, I was a bundle of nerves by the time I stood at the front of the classroom. My mentor was very patient, and while there were a range of students who could be difficult to handle, the longer I was in the classroom, and the better relationships I developed with those students, the easier it was to teach them. Looking back, Sacred Heart is the school in which I felt most comfortable and genuinely part of the community. After my placement and classes ended, I came back to volunteer for the remainder of the year and loved every minute of it. When choosing schools for the fourth year placement, I was seriously tempted to put Sacred Heart as my first preference, as I had enjoyed the experience so much. In the end, I decided that it would be best to choose a different school in order to gain experience in as many different school environments as I could before I became a qualified teacher.

Fourth year – “The Home Stretch” My fourth year placement at Stockdale Road Primary was definitely the hardest. I started at the beginning of the year but constantly felt like I was falling behind. I could barely keep up most of the time, and despite trying to stay organised, there were many times I was left floundering on the day of a lesson trying to get my resources or the classroom in order. Despite this, I stuck with it – partly because I am a pretty stubborn person, but mostly because I sincerely wanted to improve and become a better teacher. The children in my class were a key motivator, as I enjoyed teaching them even though it stressed me out on days when nothing seemed to be going right. This is not to say that it was easy. Far from it. I almost failed my first semester placement due to some recurring issues including a lack of open communication between myself and my mentor. Luckily, I learned from my mistakes and took pains to become more organised and consult with my mentor more in second semester. This year has been eye-opening in terms of methods to intrinsically motivate students, as Stockdale Road implements the Walker Learning Approach, and does not allow for extrinsic motivators. While it is sometimes difficult attempting to avoid extrinsic motivation (I do want to reward students for their efforts, and sometimes verbal compliments don’t feel like enough), I am a firm believer in students learning for learning’s sake, and I believe that finding their own intrinsic motivation sets them up as lifelong learners. Consequently, in my future practice I will strive to foster intrinsic motivation in my students by tapping into their areas of interest and encouraging them to celebrate personal improvement.

Fourth year – “The Home Stretch” In addition to providing me with both the desire wholly intrinsically motivate students and the tools to attempt it, my time at Stockdale Road has given me a great deal of practice in flexibility. As mentioned previously, stubbornness is a trait which carries from my personal identity to my professional identity. In the past, my stubbornness has kept me persistently trying one approach to teaching particular content, or meant that I have stuck to plans when I needed to adapt. If there is one thing I think I have really benefitted from during my time at Stockdale Road, it has been the need to deviate from my planning and the insistence from my mentor to be more flexible.