This week has been a bit special because, due to personal matters, our tutor has not been able to come to the Secondary School for two days, therefore, we could just deal with our Practicum for one day. Nevertheless, I have worked (and I am still working) a lot with my Didactic Unit which will start next Monday! I am a bit nervous but I am really excited as I am enjoying while working in it. I will deal with literature with some specific literary works. The truth is that I really enjoy this topic (I am studying it right now!) and I hope that my students feel motivation and interest towards the huge and sometimes boring word of LITERATURE. I will try to make them feel that reading is something great and that there are many different approaches to it… It is not just about boring staff… There’s a huge world of wonderful things within it!
As I was saying, we went to the Secondary School for one day: Wednesday. As we couldn’t implement our ‘prepared’ activities on the previous days, our tutor asked us to do the whole Wednesday 3rd of ESO lesson. It was eight o’clock in the morning and students were really quiet. Me and my CAP mate started by checking a translation exercise that students had for homework. Afterwards, we did some exercises that the teacher asked us to do and finally we could work on the activities we had prepared. To begin with, we did an oral activity, in which we revised some vocabulary related to feelings: we exposed some unfinished sentences showing a specific feeling and students had to guess the adjective we were referring to. Then, we divided them into different groups and we gave them a cut short story (using past simple tense). They had to order it and think of a possible ending. I think that students enjoyed it and the class was successfully finished.
Afterwards, we attended a ‘Comissió de Disciplina’ meeting. I was shocked because I wasn’t aware of the importance it has and the huge amount of work it requires. Indeed, I also thought that it is really important to have a proper team and to be able to work cooperatively with colleagues. Being a teacher is not just about teaching and working in front of students. There is an enormous world of ‘extra’ organizational issues that must be dealt with. Our tutor told us that the centre had divided teachers into different ‘commissions’ and we could go to the ‘discipline’ one.
They met to an appropriate small room as they were five different people. There was the head teacher, the head of studies, a technician of social integration and two teachers. In this case, the commission was in charge of all ESO ‘Incidence sheets’ (Fulls d’Incidència). They had almost sixty papers and they had to take different decisions according to each specific situation and student. One of the teachers was in charge of ordering and organizing the sheets that were already computerized, while the others had to read each paper and consider the consequences on each case. Then, the head of studies signed each sheet and the head teacher introduced all the information in a computer in order to have everything organized.
They talked about every single case, and I was surprised for some things that were said in there. There were different levels of problems. For example, there were some behavioural problems, such as a student who hit another one due to racial differences; or some drugs problems, such as a student who took something and had to go to the hospital; or much more soft ones, such as students who arrived late at lessons or who just didn’t attend them.
I somehow panicked because in my opinion it is really difficult to judge an action and consider a proper consequence. Every single student is a person with a specific background, family, life, attitude… and I am sure it is not easy to label each problem into a specific box. Each case is singular, and it makes the work difficult and serious. As a consequence, I think that the commission is a great organizational team which must be taken seriously and which has an important function into the educational system of the Secondary School.
Finally, we went to a tutorial session with a 4th of ESO class, with another teacher due to the fact that our tutor wasn’t a tutor this year. I really wanted to see how it would work, because my memories from tutorial sessions when I studied in the Secondary School were good. However, I was so impressed and surprised according to the behaviour of the students and the strategies that the teacher used. First of all, there was a student, the representative of the class, who started shouting at her classmates. I was shocked because I thought she was being so rude and impolite. Moreover, the rest of the class was speaking and nobody listened to her. After some minutes, she said that there were going to be some special events for Christmas and she talked about the ‘Parlament Verd’ (It is a kind of movement involved within the Secondary School which promotes some ecological activities, such as the use of the same books for students one year and another year. In the sense that they don’t write in the books, so consequently, next year, new students are able to work with those used books).
Some time later, the teacher announced two different activities that she wanted to do with the class. Indeed, she told them a story about people who just shouted each other, therefore, their ‘hearts’ were separated. It was a nice and reflexive story; however, most of the students didn’t pay attention and were absolutely ‘out’ of it. Afterwards, the teacher asked them to write down in a sheet of paper things that made them angry, such as: ‘I don’t like when my mother complains because of my clothes…’ Nevertheless, I think that among those students and the teacher there was no respect and the activity was somehow lost... I felt so sad and I really thought that if I had been there being the teacher, I would have had a real frustration and disappointment.
To sum up, in spite of the fact that we have just been one day in the Secondary School this week, it has been a really intense one. Furthermore, I am looking forward to starting my didactic unit next week… Let’s see…!
As I was saying, we went to the Secondary School for one day: Wednesday. As we couldn’t implement our ‘prepared’ activities on the previous days, our tutor asked us to do the whole Wednesday 3rd of ESO lesson. It was eight o’clock in the morning and students were really quiet. Me and my CAP mate started by checking a translation exercise that students had for homework. Afterwards, we did some exercises that the teacher asked us to do and finally we could work on the activities we had prepared. To begin with, we did an oral activity, in which we revised some vocabulary related to feelings: we exposed some unfinished sentences showing a specific feeling and students had to guess the adjective we were referring to. Then, we divided them into different groups and we gave them a cut short story (using past simple tense). They had to order it and think of a possible ending. I think that students enjoyed it and the class was successfully finished.
Afterwards, we attended a ‘Comissió de Disciplina’ meeting. I was shocked because I wasn’t aware of the importance it has and the huge amount of work it requires. Indeed, I also thought that it is really important to have a proper team and to be able to work cooperatively with colleagues. Being a teacher is not just about teaching and working in front of students. There is an enormous world of ‘extra’ organizational issues that must be dealt with. Our tutor told us that the centre had divided teachers into different ‘commissions’ and we could go to the ‘discipline’ one.
They met to an appropriate small room as they were five different people. There was the head teacher, the head of studies, a technician of social integration and two teachers. In this case, the commission was in charge of all ESO ‘Incidence sheets’ (Fulls d’Incidència). They had almost sixty papers and they had to take different decisions according to each specific situation and student. One of the teachers was in charge of ordering and organizing the sheets that were already computerized, while the others had to read each paper and consider the consequences on each case. Then, the head of studies signed each sheet and the head teacher introduced all the information in a computer in order to have everything organized.
They talked about every single case, and I was surprised for some things that were said in there. There were different levels of problems. For example, there were some behavioural problems, such as a student who hit another one due to racial differences; or some drugs problems, such as a student who took something and had to go to the hospital; or much more soft ones, such as students who arrived late at lessons or who just didn’t attend them.
I somehow panicked because in my opinion it is really difficult to judge an action and consider a proper consequence. Every single student is a person with a specific background, family, life, attitude… and I am sure it is not easy to label each problem into a specific box. Each case is singular, and it makes the work difficult and serious. As a consequence, I think that the commission is a great organizational team which must be taken seriously and which has an important function into the educational system of the Secondary School.
Finally, we went to a tutorial session with a 4th of ESO class, with another teacher due to the fact that our tutor wasn’t a tutor this year. I really wanted to see how it would work, because my memories from tutorial sessions when I studied in the Secondary School were good. However, I was so impressed and surprised according to the behaviour of the students and the strategies that the teacher used. First of all, there was a student, the representative of the class, who started shouting at her classmates. I was shocked because I thought she was being so rude and impolite. Moreover, the rest of the class was speaking and nobody listened to her. After some minutes, she said that there were going to be some special events for Christmas and she talked about the ‘Parlament Verd’ (It is a kind of movement involved within the Secondary School which promotes some ecological activities, such as the use of the same books for students one year and another year. In the sense that they don’t write in the books, so consequently, next year, new students are able to work with those used books).
Some time later, the teacher announced two different activities that she wanted to do with the class. Indeed, she told them a story about people who just shouted each other, therefore, their ‘hearts’ were separated. It was a nice and reflexive story; however, most of the students didn’t pay attention and were absolutely ‘out’ of it. Afterwards, the teacher asked them to write down in a sheet of paper things that made them angry, such as: ‘I don’t like when my mother complains because of my clothes…’ Nevertheless, I think that among those students and the teacher there was no respect and the activity was somehow lost... I felt so sad and I really thought that if I had been there being the teacher, I would have had a real frustration and disappointment.
To sum up, in spite of the fact that we have just been one day in the Secondary School this week, it has been a really intense one. Furthermore, I am looking forward to starting my didactic unit next week… Let’s see…!
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