My first few weeks at Pearson High School have quickly flown
by. I am getting to know the staff members and know the names of the students
in three of my four classes. Now, without an alarm, I wake up every morning at exactly 6:57 a.m. and get ready for an amazing day with the Pearsonites (Pearson High School
students). I am usually out of the house by 7:30 and “pick up” Claudea, two apartment
buildings down the road. Claudea is a fellow student teacher and South African
who attends Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University. She has been very helpful
and kind to me. Our staff meetings begin at 7:55 and they are led by the principal
Mr. Van Staden and vice principal Mrs. Roux. During the first week at Pearson,
Mr. Bubb gave me an informal but detailed tour of the school. There are six
class periods in a day and two "tea" breaks. I worked out my schedule before the
Easter holidays and now that we are back in session I feel more comfortable with
the timetable. I almost have it memorized! It is confusing compared to our
block schedule in the States where the classes do not vary depending on the whether it is “Week 1” or “Week 2”. I observed Mrs. Gibbens, Mr. Jacobs, Mrs. Baxter,
Mrs. De Klerk, and Mrs. Bucynski during “Week 2” here. As I observed in their
classes, I noticed how attentive most of the students were, even with a lack of
technology and learning resources. It seemed as if they had
enough, the teacher. Nonetheless, no teacher is the same and I took note of
different strategies and techniques used by each one.
Unlike field experience back home in Ohio where one can easily
find themselves checking and grading papers on their first day of observation,
here it is taking some time to get to that point. In fact, the marking system here is different. Every assignment the students complete is “for marks” and some of
the teachers constantly reiterate that circumstance. With that being said, marking the
students' work would perhaps interrupt the teacher’s assessment flow. The way the teacher’s
mark is quite tedious if you ask me. Reminds me of marks back at Federal Government Girls’ Owerri. Oh, the good
old days...
Back to now. I arrived in Port Elizabeth at an awkward time. I started at
Pearson High School that Monday and the school holidays began the following week. We are in Term 2 now and I have been planning and teaching lessons to
Grade 9, 10 and 12. The two texts I am teaching from are Beverley Naidoo’s The Other Side of Truth and E.R.
Braithwaite To Sir With Love. I am
very biased towards these two novels because I have read both and have respect
for both authors and stories. I want the students to appreciate Sade’s fictional narrative based on true
incidents that occurred in Nigeria and Mr. Braithwaite’s autobiographical narrative about his experience teaching in East London. I want them to appreciate the novels just as much as I did and still do. I enjoy reading the novels out loud in class and
discussing comprehension-based questions with the assistance of my cooperating teacher, Mrs. Baxter (Pipa).
I have narrowed my main cooperating teacher to Mrs. Baxter but I am
also working with Mrs. De Klerk and Mrs. Gibbens, head
of the English Department. An incident recently occurred which implored Mrs. Gibbens consultation. We had our Parent Evening on the 10th
and 11th of this month. One of the evenings, a parent harassed Mrs.
Baxter for “allowing a student teacher to take over her lessons”, accused Mrs. Baxter for not teaching her daughter and suspected Mrs. Baxter's lack of teaching as a result of her daughter's academic "failure". Mind you, this child was not failing her English class, but obviously failing the high expectations of her overambitious mother. This incident caused my cooperating teacher to
reevaluate my teaching, instruction and ultimately my presence in that particular class. She wanted to consider only having me "observe". I, too, was frustrated at this point because student teaching is not the time for "observing" anymore. Student teaching is for teaching.
However, I kept my peace that Friday Mrs. Baxter asked me not to read with
the students. I requested a meeting with Mrs. Gibbens
because it was not my intention to interfere with anyone’s profession and it
worked out that the three of us were able to discuss alternative options. She
would announce to the class that I was only at Pearson and in their classroom to help bring a different perspectives to their learning and teach them using To Sir With Love.
I am more content at this point and satisfied with the way the
situation was handled. Honestly, it could have been worse.
TODAY
Today I did PLASMA for Mrs. Buczynski (Jenny) and Mrs.
Norden’s mathematics class. PLASMA is an Afrikaans and English (combined) term
for substitution. I will also complete PLASMA for all of Jenny’s classes this
Wednesday. After I am finished blogging, I will start planning my lessons for Grade 8, 9 and 10 and an extensive lesson for Active and Passive Voice for all Grade Nines to teach on Wednesday and Thursday.
Jenny suggested I teach her Grade Nines as well so that she can watch me carry
out the lesson and implement for her own instruction.
Tomorrow is the school’s award assembly and I plan on
bringing my camera to take pictures. I will not take pictures for long considering the
assembly is only ONE HOUR LONG! Let’s just say… Mr. Van Staden is a good talker
J He has a way of preaching about what seems like anything that comes this his dear mind. He has preached about everything
from academics and uniforms to telling the students to reschedule their doctor’s
appointments for athletics; “Your world should revolve around the sport”! At
first, my reaction was, ‘What type of absurdity is this?’ and then Mr. Van
Staden explained that mandatory athletics is a way of teaching kids about commitment
and dedication. From that standpoint, the school code stating “All learners are
expected to take part in at least one sport each term” makes more sense to me. I thought to myself every day
for the first week that I was never going to fit in at Pearson, seeing that I
was quite unathletic and never played a sport in my own high school experience.
How could I motivate the students to take part in something I had never taken
part of?
Easy. I was honest with the students and have been honest
with them since day one. “No, I never played a sport but I do look back now and
wish I had been more physically active during my high school career.” I
appreciate their sincerity in return and am growing fond of these young adults
each and every day. It is sad to think that I am going to be leaving them in
less than two months.
There is so much to be said about this school. I will try
hard to break it down in the weeks to come…
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