I have been there now for three days and as I leave each day I think the same thing! Today is a blur, I know I've just taught 5 lessons and taken a morning roll group, but where did that 7 hours just go? Perhaps it is a safety mechanism, perhaps if I could remember in greater detail I might not go back.
From a supply teacher's perspective, as I said before St Joseph's is sheer chaos. I get emailed most of my lesson plans at about 8:10am, giving me all of about 15 minutes to digest what's coming over the next 5 hours. And a single lesson usually goes a bit like this, noting the excruciatingly painful logging on and off requirements -
- Look at map for location of room, turn map upside down and look again. Give up and ask for directions, race over courtyard through mist and fog, struggle against sea of students, bound up stairs and burst into room.
- Log on to classroom computer and then log on to the SIMS register system
- Get class in and take the register
- Open outlook and use email to open class notes and powerpoint presentation, desperately try to think of interesting facts/stories pertaining to content of powerpoint presentation.
- Starter - ask the class 10 general questions on heart disease, go through the answers (!) Outline lesson objectives.
- Main Activities
- talk through the powerpoint presentation on heart disease, heart structure, circulation and heart valves, including explaining the animations (what animations? - I have subsequently found out when loading the powerpoint presentation you need to enable the animations in order for them to be displayed! Go me!)
- Log off and re log on using a different ID to access the "Ox Box" folder within the general science/biology folder. Log on to Ox Box using a third log on ID and password to load and play 2 short videos on heart disease and risk factors. Watch very carefully so can work out answers to questions that will follow.
- Log off different ID and log back on under original ID to re-access class notes and resume powerpoint presentation. Go through questions and just-acquired answers on videos and hand out worksheet on examining veins in the forearm.
- Plenary - Collect worksheets, summarise lesson and give out any homework. Dismiss class.
- Log off SIMS register and main computer program and get ready to do it all again 5 minutes later.
Now don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike going there.
In fact I have been quietly amazed at my capacity to speak (reasonably) authoritatively on a wide range of subjects - take today for example - I raved on about biodiversity, veins, arteries, capillaries, hydrostatic pressure, osmosis, tissue fluid, heart disease, deforestation, pollution, circuits, batteries, energy, electrons and charges! Yee har! And in amongst all that I had an art lesson and looking around the room was relieved to find that I actually recognised a bunch of Escher prints. Ha - see I do know something about art!
Anyhoo - I am still shaking my head in bewilderment as I recap on today. I had kids that were so disinterested that despite my best efforts and (very entertaining) anecdotes they either gazed out the window, talked, looked at their phone or worse still - got up and moved around the class.
I'm trying hard to generate interest in the subject matter in the hope that this interest keeps the masses quiet-ish, rather than continually having to ask for shoosh. I'm having mixed results, but I have one thing that is proving a bit of a bonus and that is an Australian accent. The kids are interested in Australia and want to ask all sorts of kangaroo/surfing/beach/snake and spider type questions. I have started using this as a bit of a bargaining tool - sit down and do some work and I'll give you 2 minutes at the end to ask me anything about Aus. So far it's been sort of working.
Anyhoo again - believe it or not I think I sort of enjoy the crazy chaos, well perhaps enjoy is not the right word. I am surviving and I'm proud of that. I'm also learning my subject matter at a phenomenal rate, which is no mean feat for the Year 13 lessons on cellular respiration and the light dependent and independent reactions of photosynthesis, including the processes of photolysis and cyclical and non-cyclical photophosphorylation (which, in case you were wondering, is the creation of the high energy molecule ATP from ADP and inorganic phosphate in the presence of light)!
St Joseph's provides the kind of environment that challenges me to the upmost and hey -it hasn't killed me yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment