Training to become a teacher involves a lot of fun activities. Such as researching squeaky puppets. And fun facts about pi. Making posters for my classroom. Planning classroom layout. Role playing a naughty child (this I'm doing all too well). Lying on the floor and humming. Presenting crazy lesson plan to the group. Making flamingos out of multilink cubes. Watching ridiculous videos on youtube (I highly recommend the one below, it's hilarious). Making paper tutus. Drawing gigantic circles on the pavement.
There are also not so much fun parts of my life now. Like waking up at 6am. Or having classes and workshops starting at 9am and going on until 7pm (or even 9pm). The paperwork which never ends. And piles and piles of important pieces of paper scattered around. Long post-lunch lectures. Wearing business clothing every day. 68 pages of Maths exercises.
The former definitely outweigh the latter. I'm having a fantastic time, this time in Leeds and I simply cannot wait for when I go into the classroom in September. I've learnt so much in the past weeks, it's incredible how much you can absorb. I now have a folder full of resources, tips, practical ideas and suggestions. I'm pretty sure that my first lessons will be disastrous, because you only gain confidence with experience, but at least I have an armoury of things to try out. I'm actually becoming progressively less worried about teaching. And I'm finally getting on the top of things I need to do (slowly, yet steadily).
There's only one more week left now and then a well-deserved break! Though planning will inevitably happen as well: I need to organise myself, create all my posters and such, but it will be a fun part. In the meantime, there's TF Impact Conference on Monday and Tuesday! There are a lot of interesting sessions, I'm in the process of compiling a stack of post-it notes with all the talks I want to go to, it's almost impossible to make a choice. I definitely want to hear about engaging parents- it's something really close to my heart since I've written an essay on it. There are also some sessions on motivation and leadership that I will try to get into. I really hope these will be useful and set me up for September.
There's only one more week left now and then a well-deserved break! Though planning will inevitably happen as well: I need to organise myself, create all my posters and such, but it will be a fun part. In the meantime, there's TF Impact Conference on Monday and Tuesday! There are a lot of interesting sessions, I'm in the process of compiling a stack of post-it notes with all the talks I want to go to, it's almost impossible to make a choice. I definitely want to hear about engaging parents- it's something really close to my heart since I've written an essay on it. There are also some sessions on motivation and leadership that I will try to get into. I really hope these will be useful and set me up for September.
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On a different note, Leeds is absolutely boiling this week. It's barely impossible to cope with the heat. Thankfully most of our lecture theatres and classrooms have air conditioning, so at least during working hours it's a little bit more bearable. I suppose it's nice that after two months of temperatures in the region of 10 degrees and rain it's nice to have some proper summer, but, gosh, I'm glad I live in a country well such weather is not that common.
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