Teaching

Wow...teaching... It is definitely not for everyone. Today was my day of being the lead teacher for our class of ten preschoolers. All of the activities I had planned went well, and I got some great interaction out of my children, even the nonverbal one! They seemed to enjoy the songs, games, craft, and our language and science activities. Afterwards, however, I met with the speech language pathologist who observed while I was teaching. She had quite a few comments.

She told me that my day was "pretty good" and that I "accomplished all of my goals," but she definitely had several areas that she felt could be improved. She said I need to work on being more assertive and offered several ideas on how I could have incorporated more language skills into my activities. At first I was overwhelmed by her seemingly limitless list of corrections, but after a few minutes of digesting it all, I realized that I am thankful for her comments. I didn't come to this internship to only hear "great job! You're the best!" I came to learn. And how else am I going to learn if no one criticizes me? I know that the SLP only meant well and is genuinely trying to help me become better, so I am taking in her comments and focusing on how I can incorporate them into my next day of teaching.

Teaching for me is not natural. Teaching a classroom of developmentally delayed 4 year olds is certainly not natural. Teaching children who don't speak, can't sit still for more than ten minutes, and don't transition well is, once again, not natural. But I know that I will become more comfortable with it as time passes.

Sometimes we learn best by falling flat on our faces first. I didn't get the impression from the SLP that I fell flat on my face; all of the other girls said that she had a lengthy list of corrections for them too. But still...

I keep reminding myself that I am NOT going to be a teacher. This is not what I will be doing. I will be working one-on-one or at most two-on-one with children. I won't be "teaching", I'll be doing therapy. Also, I will not have to plan things for them to do from 9 AM to 1 PM. At most, I will have a child for one hour. While my career setting will be extremely different from this intern setting, I know that the things I learned from my SLP today will carry over into my career. Some way, somehow.

So here's to day 2 of teaching...and everyday of teaching from here on out! May each day be better than the day before!

Still learning. Still growing. Still miss and love you all!

-Amy

the little girl, in the big city