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This week was torture. I slept through most of it as it consumed me.

I have not filled my required hours yet but I am sure that will be done next week.
Day after day I felt less like I wanted to be at school. School is great.

You start each day with a staff meeting and then you work and work and work some more. I don't mind the work when I see my learners faces light up when I speak passionately about my subject, or when a learner asks if I'll be teaching because my lessons are fun and informative. Those moments are rewarding. Those moments make teaching set my soul on fire but I do not enjoy coming to school and expecting my teacher to evaluate me and they don't show up or they prefer not to evaluate me because "you already are a fantastic teacher".

I don't enjoy my time being wasted. We student teachers work hard. We are students and we want to learn and we have work to do besides our lessons that need to be planned. We are humans just like everyone else.

I come home from school plan my lessons and then sleep at 6, 7, 8-pm.
This cannot be health or right. My family complain that they don't see my, my boyfriend said I disappeared for a week and I did.

I let all this happen, I didn't take care of my own needs but that will no longer be a problem. I was emancipated from the womb and groomed into leadership. I didn't choose it, it chose me. I will always fight for what is right and sometime I forget to do that for myself. Ke nako.

To all who are struggling, don't stop moving.

Tomorrow is another day.

I got lost

Last week was crazy, bring a student teacher doesn't come with the perks of staying home  when you are ill.

I spent the last two weeks feeling like death from having the flue to a stomach problem that made digesting food agonising. I was low on energy and I was teachingoing everyday. It was difficult and made me miss being a student the most. I fought through it all and did the best I could giving everything and falling to the floor when I got home.

I had my criteria lesson last Thursday and I taught transgender under sexuality to grade 10's. I got a fairly good mark from the lecturer but I felt his disappointed in my mark with a 74%. I had a class that was engaged and loved the lesson because finally they understood. The girls asked question and even took out their phones to show me they too know the person whom I spoke about. The school is progressive with technology and they don't believe children should be quiet at all times but when a lecturer comes in to view a lesson with a past vision of the classroom, we are not on the same page.

I guess I was frustrated and still am because I have been commended in staff meetings for my work so far. They are excited about my ideas. Maybe the education faculty is far behind where school actually is.

What is in the past is beyond my control. I will keep on working hard and challenging myself and my learners. When I give 100% I get 100%.

Hard  at work preparing lessons 

-Lindsay Küger and myself 

The triangle of mediocracy

I find it best to blog after the weekend when my mind is fresh and my whole blog isn't a complaint because teaching sure can do that to you.

Are you being given taking advantage of but learning lots in the process? Me too.
Are teachers giving you all their lessons but barely citing them? Me too.
Are all you nights spent thinking about school and dreading the sound of the alarm every morning but bubbling with excitement for what the day could hold? Me too.

I want to be the best so I am. And that how I get things done. I chose subject that I'm passionate about over subjects that will help ensure to make money because a life chasing money is a wasted life if you have not lived through what sets your soul of  fire.

As a starting teacher I have found myself always going above and beyond for every lesson. I'll put in 3 sessions of planning for every lesson I have so that when I get to the classroom everyone has learned something. I want my learners to learn , I'm not trying to pass time. I refuse to give anything less than I would expect. This makes life difficult. Do I do work and go sleep or see my friends and sleep? Or do I work and see my friends but then not sleep? .... life has been throwing this challenge at me for the last couple of weeks.

I've really learned the value of time, time wasted is time lost. I use all the time I have to do what have to then what I want to and very little time spent on  what anyone else wants because sleep comes first.

The point I'm trying to make is: Do what you can with what you have because if you don't, only you will suffer.

We don't know what this cat is doing but he seem like he know and that's all that counts 

-See in a random Isle in the learning commons, Bridge House College

If I ruled the world...

I guess I've had a really tough week. Thus my post is late...

1. To charge
2. To plan
3. To print
4. To sleep
5. To eat
6. To live
7. To be alive
8. Always love what you do

Things to follow. Things to do my brain in tired but I love every minute of every day.
School takes all my time so I learn to make time for the things that matter. I want to be the best teacher I can be so my learners can always be open to learning. We don't just teach content we teach how to learn and I think we often forget that in the hustle of school.

I got a worksheet back this week with missing answers and wrong answers and I didn't immediately assume they didn't know the newer but I realised they were not taught in the terminology of music. When I was their age I was immediately taught how we learn not what the answers were and that was lacking in this class. This week I rearranged the my tasks so that my learners could learn how to learn.

We have integrated learning in in the school I'm teaching at. So we have learners with learning disabilities mixed with mainstream learners. But when I teach I have not changed my task only given more time to finish them. I don't think we should make things easier but challenge all learners with more advanced tasks mixed in as challenges not counting for marks. I tried this in the past week and I found it to go very well in my music classes. They really wanted to learn and challenge themselves, everyone's did their work and understood all the concepts. I like this and I will continue to teach in that way. This leaves me with the question: "Does the label we give a child place a limit on the child or were they born with it?". If we take the time and give every child the same opportunities will that change the potential for every learner?

On another note:
All 7 student teachers participated in the Bridge House College talent show. It went really well and we had so much fun doing it. Getting involved in the school help to make school a little less tedious. I hope everyone is making the most of their opportunities given at their school.

Week 3: finished

Hope you had a lovely long weekend 

Thank you to the women of 1956 for their bravery freeing women of South Africa

Where did my life go?

Week 2:

I guess this was a really good week for school. I'm doing extremely well in my lessons and teaching up to 9 lesson which all need to be prepared. Preparing a 45 minute lesson doesn't take just 45 minutes as one would hope. The first year of teaching is filled with lesson planning and further exploration into a subject. This means something has got to give but why does it have to be my life?

When life give you lemons squeeze the juice into your water and stay hydrated.
- because lemonade is not sold at my school.

My time here at bridge house is proving to be of utmost value. I'm getting experience and lots of it with everyone wanting to give me with lessons and the learners responding well to my classes. In the middle of most of my days when my eyes start to burn I think "what about me, where is my time?". The simply truth is hat there is never enough time for all your active compartments but what is important is that you make time and take the time. Week days are for my job and weekends belong to my personal life.

If I don't make the time for myself none else will.

Another point I have also been very aware of this week is the ability to keep one's  private life separate from one's professional life. School is a very personal and social unit which leads many times to an overlap between personal and professional life. How does one maintain a professional stance without coming off as a "hard" person?

photo: "ant that something wonderful"

Taken as I take sometime for myself in the school day