Everlong

‘all in all, you’re just another brick in the wall’ Pink Floyd – Brick in the wall

There’s something about walking into a class of 30 ten to eleven year olds on April Fools day that fills me, a student ‘teacher’ who’s not even going to university for another 18 months, with a certain amount of dread.

I started at the middle school today. I spend the rest of the week with year 6 and the whole of next week with year 5 (nine to ten year olds). I walked into the school with a mixture of fear and nerves doing somersaults in my stomach and for a moment wanted to run out, run back to my job and say that it was all a terrible mistake. But I didn’t.

I’m not expected to do anything. I’m not teaching lessons, helping small groups or anything like that. Just sitting, watching and observing, seeing if this is something I want to spend the rest of my life doing. And after day 1, it all just seems a little bit scary. Maybe I’m not the person I thought I was and maybe I’m not as responsible as I thought I was. I will explain.

We started with Registration and 15 minutes of class time. This is taken up with assembly on some days of the week. We had assembly every day when I was in school, but I guess society has changed since then. We then had our first lesson of the day. I am spending the entire two weeks following one particular class around, so I followed them to Music. Probably not the best way to start two weeks in a school – 30 children on various instruments, banging, playing and hitting away in no discernable tune or melody. Pass the aspirin please! I then got to sit in the staffroom until the end of the next lesson and break. (I am not going to drama as the teacher is an NQT and they don’t think it would be fair on him to have me sat there watching him the entire time. Makes no difference to me, I was never a huge drama fan.) We then had science. They are studying forces at the moment – all in preparation for the SATS at the end of the year. So an hour of children dropping objects into bowls of water. Messy!

Lunch was followed by English and Maths, again both preparing them for the SATS next term. They had a test in Maths, so I just sat at the back reading some of their previous work. I was also given a guide for teachers at the school, covering various procedures and the school day. Reading this and observing the classes made me feel totally unprepared for this. Not that I should be prepared, I mean I haven’t done the course or anything, but still.

There is such a level of responsibility, more than I think I realised. Obviously there is the responsibility of teaching the children, educating them to standard that means they can cope in the world; having the responsibility of looking after the children on behalf of the parents, helping to develop their minds and personalities as well. But there’s also the responsibility of looking out for signs of bullying or abuse (both at school and out of it). Plus, do teachers get some kind of operation for a third eye? Because how do they concentrate on what someone is saying, giving them their, seemingly, full attention, before turning round to tell a child not in their eyeline, off for messing around with something on the desk? Do they teach you this kind of stuff at uni? Will I get taught not just how to teach, but how to deal with children, how to relate to children, or will it be assumed that as I want to be a teacher that I just know all of this stuff?

Being a teacher is a scary job. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but it’s not a job, it’s a career and I don’t feel grown up enough and ready for the responsibility of a career. Just two entries ago I wondered if part of me was old before the rest of me, but after today I feel like a school kid again. Sixteen years old and not a clue what the world expects from me. Just some first day observations and feelings I guess. Ask me again in two weeks what I think.

Until there is a next time…

xx