Lesson Plan Day

This morning, bright and early, I demonstrated my lesson plan.  That is, I attempted to actually teach, while observed by a professor.

There is good news and bad news.

The bad news is that I lack the ability to manage certain kinds of teaching skills that teacher candidates in my position and at my point in their education are just expected to know.  The most prominent one in my mind right now is that I cannot corral and control a group of children.  To clarify: we are not even talking about an entire classroom of children; we are talking about a small group of five students.

The good news is that I am now so very good at some aspects of teaching, including some I could not do as recently as last semester, when I took this course the first time.  For example, I am very good at zeroing in on specific students and helping them.  I am also much better at adapting a lesson to fit actual kids, rather than sticking rigidly to my own hypothetical plans.  (That second one I am actually really proud of--that's a skill I did not have at all last semester.)

The observation was such a mix of good and bad that the department wants to talk before they decide what to do with me.  If they decide I should leave the program--which, if I understood my observer, would mean I needed time and experience, and could then come back--they have ideas and suggestions about where to go next; they are not just throwing me to the wolves.

My feelings? There is a certain amount of devastation.  I worked really, really hard on this lesson plan: this is my second time through the course, and for weeks my primary schoolwork was this lesson plan.  With understanding and support from my thesis professor (also my advisor, also head of the program), I worked on my thesis not at all.  I wanted this so very badly...I did.

But I rally around the fact that I serve a Big God; and that, working together, God and I will get me where I am supposed to go in life.  I wrote in 2018 that 2014 me could never have pictured 2018 me; and that, perhaps, 2018 me could not picture 2222 me.  Of course I work as hard as I possibly can in the direction I believe my life is supposed to go; but ultimately, God has control.  The two of us together will get me to the position in life where I belong, no matter how much I fumble to get there and how many false paths I go down along the way.

This is where faith, religion, and spirituality really help.  I am devastated.  I am.  I didn't even realize it till I sat down to write this, but I am.  It's only natural, I think, considering how hard I tried and how much I wanted this to go in my favor.

And then there are the feelings of self loathing...as if it were my fault this happened this way.  I won't even touch on those here...that's therapist territory.

I plan to have the best Spring break possible anyway.  Until I hear for sure I am out of the program (Heaven forbid, but it is a possibility), I am going to carry on with my schoolwork.  I still plan to take the CST in May, so there's studying for that to do.  I am still going to work on my thesis as well.  And I will have as meaningful a Passover as I can manage.  It's the best I can do.