Maybe I'm just getting to the age where partners become more important than friends. At least to some people. And if that's the case, then why bother trying to make an effort in the friendship when the other person isn't? A friendship should be a two-way thing right? Cause it certainly doesn't feel like that with a lot of people lately.
Why must people become so distant? I get that sometimes there is a totally legit excuse, such as family problems. But when the excuse is something to do with being too busy with work and/or uni, I think that's pathetic. How hard is it to spare maybe an hour a week to see a friend you haven't seen for months? Especially when they live in the same town/city. I get that some people only live with one parent and so need work/money to survive. And maybe they're juggling a part time or full time job as well as uni and maybe it can be hard to spare time. But when you find out that someone is only being rostered on for 20 hours a week, even though they might still have uni assignments to work around, you'd think they might try and make time to see you.
Maybe I'm just getting to the age where partners become more important than friends. At least to some people. And if that's the case, then why bother trying to make an effort in the friendship when the other person isn't? A friendship should be a two-way thing right? Cause it certainly doesn't feel like that with a lot of people lately.
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I'm sorry that I've taken so long to actually update this. It was such an exhausting week last week and then the weekend, I wanted to just relax and I felt like I didn't have the motivation or the words to write what I wanted to say. I still feel like I don't. But I'll write the best I can.
So prac is officially over. Two weeks have flown by and it's now holidays. I had the most amazing time on prac and I kind of wish it didn't have to end. The kids were getting quite rowdy in the last couple of days and they were especially rowdy on the last day - although they did have free dress (here in Australia, every school has a uniform, so only particular days do they wear normal clothes). But despite that, I'm really going to miss that class. I liked them as a whole, but there were particular children I liked more than others. There was one girl who would look at me until I smiled at her or told her to turn around. And when I told her to turn around or get back to her work, she would always funnily roll her eyes. Year 2's can be pretty cute when they want to be. On the other hand, there was one kid was constantly tested my patience - he would easily get distracted from his work or didn't quite understand what to do because he wasn't paying attention when instructions were being said. He would constantly talk to the other boys beside him so I would have to tell him to be quiet or go over to him and tell him to do his work. There was also other times when kids would come up to me and tell me 'so and so said this' and sometimes I would say to them that I didn't want to hear it, because it's not really worth telling on them for. However, there were a few times where I had to go over and talk to someone because one boy pushed another boy for sitting in his seat at lunch time or something more physical, rather than verbal. But in the second week of prac, I had to teach FOUR different lessons! Well.. it was really only three. The first one was English, the second was Grammar, the third was Art and the fourth was Maths. The last lesson I wasn't really teaching as such though, as the children were just working straight from a "textbook" that they have. I was going around and helping them if they needed help though, so I guess that can still be considered teaching? Art was kind of scary at first because I was telling them about the kind of art they were going to create and then had to model how to create it and it wasn't the greatest drawing. But with the type of art it was, there was no real 'wrong'. I also got the chance to mark some of the assessment they did in the last week, such as spelling tests or maths test, which was pretty cool. Though some was painful to read, as they hadn't spelt words correctly or their maths answers were way off. But there were some kids who did pretty well in both regards and they were the ones I liked more than others :P I got the full experience while I was there and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to do it (even if prac is part of the course requirements). Another thing I loved about prac was being called Mr Wilson! Even though I had a name badge that had my first name on it, none of the kids ever called me by my first name. It was always such a great feeling every afternoon when they would say 'good afternoon Mr Wilson'. Ahhhhhhhhh. I could go into even more detail than I have, but I think I'll just leave it at this. Hope this was interesting to read about. So when I found out that we had to do 2 weeks of prac, I had no idea what was expected or what was going to happen. I thought 'it'll probably all just be observation and taking notes. Maybe there might be times where we do small group things with students, but I don't think they'll expect us to teach as such'.
Well.. after a week now, I can say that I was wrong. On the teaching front at least. The first three days was mostly observation of the teacher and how they teach different lessons and subjects. I was involved with some small group activities, such as reading groups - the children take turns reading a book, then if they get it finished, the teacher/teacher aide/me then collects up all the books and tests them on their knowledge of what happened during the book. Then if there are any words they don't know, they write them down in their books and use a dictionary to look up the meaning. Another small group was spelling groups, where I took a few kids and went through a few worksheets that had words using particular vowels/consonants. On Wednesday and Thursday during particular lessons, I took individual kids out for a few minutes to test them on their counting abilities (counting backwards by two's, counting upwards and backwards by 5's and counting upwards and backwards by hundreds) and then writing down any problems they may have had while counting. Some kids did a lot better than others did, but for those that had trouble, I did try to prompt them until they got the next number. The class I have are all pretty well behaved. Some of them do muck up sometimes and so you have to go over to them and talk to them or tell them to sit in their seat or for them to be quiet, but apart from that, they're good. Some of them talk to me more than others do, mostly the boys, but there is one girl who, in the first couple of days, would stare at me until I looked at her and smiled at her, which caused her to smile and turn back around, or I had to tell her to turn around. There are still times when she does that, but it's not quite as often now. But my gosh, year 2's are pretty cute! I'm so glad I got that year level for my first prac! I now have one more week of prac left, in which I have to teach three lessons - one on Monday, one on Tuesday and one Wednesday. I know it's probably because it's a novelty to me, being with a younger grade, but I do look forward to seeing them each day. Today marks the end of the first week of my prac! It's been quite an experience so far. When I first started, I was quite nervous and felt like there was so much expectation upon me to do well and to keep the kids in line. I also knew that at the end of the first week, I would be teaching my first full lesson and that was freaking me out so much! I thought that I wouldn't know what to say or how to teach the lesson properly.
However, it was quite the opposite. Yesterday (Friday), I taught my first full lesson - English. My mentor teacher had talked to me the day before about what needed to be included in the lesson, how I was to set it out and what to do. I also needed to write up a lesson plan to show my teacher, which was a lot easier to do now that I've had 4 whole days of observation. When it came time to do the lesson, I went through it basically according to my lesson plan that I had written out. The lesson was all about narrative text and information text and how to take information from a narrative text and turning that into an information sentence. I went through multiple examples with them as a class and then got them to start writing out information sentences on their own, taken from underlined phrases in a narrative text. It was all going pretty well until the fire evacuation drill alarm went off. I even thought 'damn it! why does it have to go off now, during my lesson?' It was kind of strange to think that, when a day before I was freaking out about how well I would do. However, right at the start of first break, about 15-20 minutes after the alarm went off, my teacher sat me down and gave me feedback on my lesson. She went through things I did well, which I was both surprised and happy to know she found I did certain things well. And she obviously told me stuff I could improve upon, but also being my first ever prac, knew that I wouldn't do everything well. She even said that she still needs to work on some things, so it was entirely good, constructive criticism/feedback. There's still a lot more to write about, but I think I might leave that for another post. I'll post up either later today or tomorrow (Sunday), so feel free to check back!
It's been longer than usual since I've posted up. This past week has been absolutely hectic. I had two assignments due, one day after another. One was due on Wednesday - I had to create differentiations for 3 different students with learning difficulties based upon the lesson plan I created in the first assignment. I then had to write 600 words explaining why differentiation is important and how it is implemented in classrooms. I ended up submitting that a day late.
Then my second assignment was due on Thursday - I had to write a 500 word rationale on why HPE is an important part of a school curriculum (and trying to find references for that was a bitch! (excuse my language)). I then had to create TWO lesson plans, with the activities/games included to be based on Aboriginal/Indigenous games. We also had to write a differentiation for each of the lessons. Then we also had to write another 500 words explaining how our lessons included differentiation and how it was effective in allowing all students to be included and whatnot. I ended up submitting that a day late as well, because I was just so stressed about both of these assignments and was not in a good frame of mind. On top of that, I also have another assignment due tomorrow (Monday) which I was kind of freaking out about, wondering if I would have enough time to finish it. But I've got about three quarters done, so I'll be fine! Also, my mind was racing with the thoughts of prac, which I start tomorrow! I was hoping to meet my mentor teacher this week, however, that didn't work out. Other students in my class have met theirs and been into their school, whereas I haven't really done that yet. But that's not my fault, because I contacted the school, but they never got back to me. But for my first couple of days, I'll only be observing and taking notes, so it shouldn't be too bad. That reminds me - I have to print out stuff for tomorrow! Too many things to think about! However, on Tuesday, I decided to record myself playing piano. I've actually been wanting to do this for quite a while now, but never really got the courage to do it. I thought I would stuff up heaps and would have to start again. But surprisingly, it only took me a couple of goes to get through the whole piece with only minor stuff ups. I also didn't know what the audio quality would be like on my little digital camera, but it did an alright job. The other reason I never recorded myself was because I wasn't sure if I wanted anyone to listen to it. And if I didn't, then really, what was the point? However, I've plucked up the courage, recorded myself and uploaded it to Vimeo. So without further ado, here it is (please don't judge). Song from a Secret Garden from Blake Wilson on Vimeo. This is my first time recording myself playing piano. I recorded it through my camera, which is why the sound quality isn't great. Please excuse the couple of mistakes I made. This past week has been pretty crazy.
Firstly, I start prac in less than a week! I'm really nervous, but still also excited. Hopefully I'll be able to meet my mentor teacher on Friday, which should ease my nerves a bit. I feel like so much is going to be expected of me though and that's what scares me the most. I know I'm with year 2's, so it should be good and fun. But there's still a feeling that it'll wear me out. I'm currently working on two assignments at the moment, both of which are due on Thursday and I'm kind of freaking out I won't get them finished or done to a decent standard. There's so much thought and prep that goes into lesson plans and researching stuff that will help with other parts. Ugh. And on top of that, this week we've been starting on our next assignments, as we have prac for 2 weeks (so no classes), then 2 weeks holidays and then basically straight after holidays the next assignments are due. It's all getting too much, trying to concentrate on one set of assignments, yet learning about others. And new content we'll have to research for ourselves and whatnot. I really hope that I can get away for at least a day (maybe more) during the holidays. Because I'm having a hard time dealing with stuff at the moment. The only upside of this past week was that I hung out/went on a date with a girl last Thursday night (who I haven't really seen since high school a few years ago). We were originally gonna go for ice cream, but then I suggested going somewhere for food/dinner first and then getting ice cream. So I picked her up and by the time we found a park, we had to walk a little ways. But that just gave us more time together :P But the dinner was nice and I got to know her better and we told some stories from our childhood. Before we knew it, there was only 20 minutes before the ice cream place closed. So instead of rushing off, we decided that we could leave it to another time. So we payed for dinner and walked back to the car. Then when I dropped her home, I finally got to hug her (after telling her multiple times in online conversations that I wanted to) and it was a really nice, tight, somewhat affectionate hug. And then just before we said goodbye, I complimented her, saying that she looked beautiful and she joked she would go and hide her blush. All in all, it was a good night and I'm looking forward to seeing her again. |
BlakeI'm a 21 year old guy who lives in Australia. I love music, I love animation and I adore space/the universe. Archives
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