“Okay boys and girls, correct the following sentence,” she commands as she points her stick on the tiny blackboard stuck to the wall. The stick is longer than she is, and two pupils are sitting quietly at a makeshift desk with their hands raised. The letters printed on the board are crooked, and the sentence has more errors than the teacher is aware of.
We were playing school in Chantel’s basement and took turns being the teacher. Little did I know the amount of work involved in being a teacher. At the time, I thought teaching was about worksheets, blackboards, and telling the students what to do. I’ve come a long way.
I start my new career next fall, and after spending the last four years studying and student-teaching, I quickly came the the realization that teaching is far from what I imagined. For one, most of the work is done outside the classroom. In order to get all the little kids engaged in meaningful work, and for the day to go smoothly, there is a lot of planning and preparation to do. I’m sure that after I’ve been at it for many years, the planning part will be less time-consuming.
The nice part about knowing what I’ll be doing in the fall is that I have all summer to plan for next year. I can order books, surf the net, and gather ideas. I can actually try some of the stuff I’ve come up with as a student-teacher and get to find out what works and what doesn’t.
To start things off, I picked up Shakespeare’s Othello along with the graphic novel version, just to get me in the mood.
Plus, I’m willing to bet that this post has more errors than the teacher is aware of.
