Week Seven

Only now we are really settling in. Teachers are becoming more comfortable having us around and actually ask for assistance in various aspects, this was a welcome change.

I started this week off stressed, it was my final two evaluation lesson on the same day. The one subject was my favorite and the other my least favorite. Prep started over the weekend and by Wednesday I was as ready as possible.

Second period is the first lesson, so having planned on just rehearsing and cover everything again, I was caught by surprise when the lecturer arrived and insisted on talking beforehand. This ended up being a good talk (setting me at ease) I even learned a few valuable lessons in that short while.

The lecturer pointed out that the didactic triangle (teacher, learner and content) is the most important and fragile things in the classroom. That these three things need to be carefully attended to. He also said that he knows we probably know that we haven’t even heard of it, luckily I could inform him that we are acquainted with the didactic triangle. He was even a bit surprised. The lecture also mentioned that there is no excuse for bad education. A country with also a developing status who have an 100% literacy rate for people between the ages of 18 and 23.

During the first lesson, Economics, technology failed me. This left me in a bit of a predicament and as I result I was high reliable on the textbook. Afterwards the lecturer advised to preferably restrain from being dependent on the textbooks and working out of it during class. The children were also different, maybe due to the lecturer being there. Normally economics classes are always to short, because of everything involving economics the lesson tends to drift, however during this lecture the learners were conserved and not actively taking part in the class discussions.

Next up was Accounting, although I did not feel as confident about the lesson the learners helped. This lesson ended up being the better of the two lessons, the learners (grade 11 vs grade 10) were not as affected by the lecturer than with the previous class and everything went smoothly. The lecturer asks afterwards whether accounting was my favorite of the two subjects as that was what he gathered. From this I learned that yes we as the teachers are in charge of the classroom but that learner behavior also predicts to a certain extend the flow of the classroom.

As the week continued I also continued with my teaching, a pattern was confirmed. In the accounting class the learners seemed to be more cooperative as they were wanting to work, however for economics they were not interested.

Grade 10 economics for term 3 mainly consisted of economic history, the learners did not like this. We (me, the teacher and the other student) tried to include interesting facts and make the history applicable to the learners, but also this didn't work. The learners and especially the one specific class has very little if any interest in economics, which made teaching them difficult.

Taking a break from my teaching I was asked to invidualate grade 8’s and grade 9’s for two periods. The class in which I had to invidualate was next to the hall, where grade 12 learners were writing exams. Because of the reputation that these two grades have been building up, the senior teachers were fed up with them and their behavior. The result for them was not as beneficial as for me. During the first lesson one senior teacher came in and addressed the learners, while addressing them she was guiding me. She multi-tasked well. This teacher was highly effective in her address to the learners, they were quiet and productive for the rest of the period even after she left. During her address she pointed out that; learners always need clear instructions, that any and all confusion should be addressed, learners act differently in groups and therefor need to be singled out, and that when trying to appeal to them you as the teacher need to appeal to their humanity.

This week was a true learning experience!