First Dose of Actual Teaching

Despite being in a teaching program, I myself do not have a lot experience with formal teaching. I have taught before, but it was not in a traditional classroom. As a lifeguard instructor, I have taught people the basics of being a lifeguard, giving them the knowledge and skills needed to be certified lifeguards. It gave me a feel for what people a teacher entails. The arduous lectures, the difficult students and the pressure to make each and every student knows what they are doing to a high enough standard in order to pass the final tests.

But that is hardly what teachers would consider real teaching. So naturally, I was intimidated by an assignment for another one of my courses. I was to construct a lesson plan and present it in class with the goal of covering the vital aspects of the readings due for that week. This may not seem like a daunting task, as this is a common assignment in schooling. However, for whatever reason, I was panicking. Stressing out. I was all over the place.

Luckily, this was a group project so I was able to work with another student in the class. We were able to put our ideas together and prepared to the best of our ability. Last week was the moment of truth. Were we ready? Could we do it? I wasn’t sure. To be completely honest, I was convinced that we were going to fail miserably. No amount of optimism could be feigned.

Success.

Yet, everything went better than expected.

This was a pleasant surprise, making my first exposure to formal teaching almost positive. My public speaking, once a great weakness, served me well, which I credit to my numerous presentations in college and my experience as a lifeguard instructor. I was fairly well prepared with my knowledge and the activities that were included in the lesson plan were more than successful, resonating very well with the class as a whole. I couldn’t help by sigh with relief when it was all over.

A week later, there is a lot to draw from this experience. First off, lesson plans are not easy to construct. There is a lot to consider when writing a lesson plan. Activities to do, course material to cover, concepts to bring up, and goals to accomplish. I never actually wrote one and mine was ridiculously basic, but even then it was not easy to construct a great one. Secondly, the importance of preparation. I know how understand how much knowledge I need, how confident I am in my knowledge of the subject and how confident I present the information. Teachers need to appear to as an authority, so that students respect and believe in my presentation. It is fine for students to challenge the teacher, but I rather be as knowledgeable as possible. I do not want to be off-guard frequently, even if a challenge can be an excellent learning opportunity. The last one was the need to be engaging in lesson plans. Our activity was very engaging and the students ate it up, loving every moment. It made the class fun and educational. That is the ideal combination, really. We want our schools to be fun, but I never really knew why. Now, I know.