Even though the human mind was not designed to multitask, teaching is a job that requires a lot of multitasking, especially teaching in a pandemic. Concurrent teaching, specifically, involves teaching students in the classroom simultaneously while teaching students virtually on Zoom. I had heard from multiple people that concurrent teaching is extremely difficult. Because of this belief, I was extremely nervous for the first day of concurrent teaching. Not only this, but I had not met any of my students in person yet. To be honest, concurrent teaching was much easier than I expected. Of course, there was a lot of technology to manage, and it’s extremely exhausting. However, it is not quite as difficult as I anticipated.
When the kids finally arrived in the classroom, it was awkwardly silent. I’m not the kind of person who is typically uncomfortable with silence, but I could sense that the students were nervous, even though they claimed they weren’t nervous. I loved getting to have students in person and getting to know some of my students who were more talkative in person than they were on Zoom. This past week, my cooperating teacher (CT) went out of town on Thursday and Friday while I stayed to teach concurrently for my second week. The students are only in person on Thursdays and Fridays, and my CT just so happened to go out of town those days this week. With it only being my third and fourth day of concurrent officially, I was nervous to see how the dynamic would be without my CT there. Surprisingly, I had so much fun with the kids, and I felt myself relaxing a lot more. I’ve appreciated the relationships I’ve developed with my students and how some of the quietest kids are coming out of their shells. On Thursday, I had a student who was going to fail my class because he had missed weeks of school and his mom honestly didn’t care if he passed, so I had a heart to heart with him. I asked him to be honest with me about whether he wanted to pass not only my class, but also the 8th grade. He told me he did, and I told him I knew he did because when he came back to school he caught up on two weeks of work in a day. That showed me he wanted to do well. I also told him that I know P.E. stinks and I hated it too, but he needed to show up to gym class to pass. Since then, he’s now passing all his classes, ACING gym, and he told me on Thursday that my class is his favorite class and the best class in the school. On Friday, I learned from my co-teacher, when she took some of the class to one room and I had the other half, that the kids genuinely loved my class and me as a teacher. I was honestly surprised because I thought they went with my co-teacher because they didn’t like me. However, my co-teacher said they were sad to learn I wasn’t actually a teacher and would be leaving in April. We have a child with a rough past who also said it was his favorite class he has ever taken. Honestly, I felt so touched because I didn’t think I was that good of a teacher. At the end of the day, though, what matters is that my students feel like they’re learning and they get excited to come to class every week. I may feel like I’ve got a lot to learn still, and I do, but I am so excited to be a teacher.
1 Comment
Keith
3/7/2021 04:08:55 pm
Love it! That’s the WHY of what you are doing, and confirmation of the call!!
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AuthorKelsey Hayes is a student teacher finishing up her Senior year at Regent University. Through this blog, Kelsey Hayes will share the raw, honest truth about teaching and how both its joys and challenges motivate her to continue pursuing teaching. Archives
April 2021
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