This is the first week of my last three weeks of teaching. From yesterday onwards, I will teach one class every day. Oh what fun! Prepping for each class takes a really long time. At this point I can't imagine prepping for four or five classes! I just keep gathering resources!
Yesterday I supervised my first quiz. My little grade 8's had a quiz. It went really well. As the students handed in their test, they had to pick up a question worksheet. Which also went really well. I was actually kind of bord because the students were quiet and working for at least 45 minutes. Mr. S. told me to enjoy this moment, because if I was teaching other classes I would probably long for some silence. He clearly did, since he was closing his eyes and dozing, as he was supposed to be marking me. Although not much to mark when the students are working and I am just circulating and answering questions.
Once the silence had stopped, we finished off our notes on Humanism. Part of the notes was to define the word "vanity" it means "a worthless pleasure." As I was saying this and writing it on the board, the kids started to snicker and laugh. So I said, well I don't see what is funny about that, and they stopped. Seriously, get your head out of the gutter! Last block they are bound to get a little silly.
Today I got ready to teach my first class of grade 9's. I was pretty nervous, I had prayed, Joshua prayed and Andy, Sharon, and Andrew prayed during my class time. PTL, thanks guys! The prayer worked. Class went fairly well. We just constructed a VENN diagram to show the differences and similarities between the Jesuit missionaries and the Coureurs de Bois. Not a lot of input was given by the students, but we made it through the discussion alright. Then I just wrote a ton of notes on the board, they copied and my hand got tired! Hopefully we will start to have a little more fun together.
After lunch I began to mark my quizzes. Some were really good, some were not. I am not even joking when I write this, one student received 1.5/25. SO dismal. There were others who received marks between 3 and 10/25. One of my Koren exchange students received the highest mark 22.5/25. That is amazing to me. As I was marking the tests I almost felt like crying because I was thinking what went so wrong to make students fail so badly. Was it my teaching, their laziness, their missing class, or a combination of all three? I think my teaching is alright, I am lacking in giving examples, but the notes are all there, and I have made sure that every student that has missed a class has received the assignment and notes. I suppose it is up to them to make the effort to do the work and hand it in. I guess I just felt like why am I putting SO much effort in if they are not going to give the effort back? Tomorrow we will have a chat about their quiz. Plus if they want to win the pizza party for having a better final test score, the will have to work a little harder!
This has been very long winded, but I am glad to write it down.
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