Practically there

Its been a full week in my school, and it has been an awesome experience. There are not nearly enough ways to prepare yourself for stepping in front of a classroom, except knowing your materials and finding that link between your audience and the topic for the day.

The invisible roads that are drawn inbetween ideas and individual's concepts are so tough to make. In the weeks we are "submersed" in a school, it is extremely challenging to make those connections or help the students create them. It seems we are here to go through the following within our first practicum:

• Learn the "ways" of the school
• Compare to our experience of our own high school growing up
• Discover what its like standing in front of a class

In those three items alone, it takes the three weeks we do spend at the school to get adjusted. Only near the end of the practicum session, I learned there is more to teaching than this. The "life force" of the staff; the engaging of the students beyond the classroom; the challenges of balancing life outside of the school with that of your job. Its rewarding and challenging all at once.