Kiely's Teaching Response 1

Today was the first day that we went teaching at Spanish Fork Jr. High, and it turned out much different than we had expected. We had some problems getting there, and consequently we were a bit late getting to our class. But from this I learned a great lesson from our teacher: always have a back up plan. Always have something you can do with your students, that's valuable, just in case what was planned, doesn't come to pass. Our teacher has been teaching her students about Roman history, and had wanted to show some pictures of Rome and Pompeii that she had taken while she was there a few years ago. But she had kind of run out of time and hadn't had the chance to show them. When we didn't show up when she was expecting, she found her chance to show the pictures and talk about everything in them. It was a great opportunity because the kids loved and it and you could tell they were completely involved, even though they were just looking at pictures. These were real pictures of the places they had been studying, and seeing pictures their teacher had taken in person, and had her in some of them, made these places more real for them. When we talked to her after class, she said she saw the situation as an opportunity, and I thought that was very profound and a great way to look at things as a teacher. Sometimes, a lot of times, things aren't going to go the way you plan in the classroom. So take what happens, and instead of looking at it as a terrible thing, look at it as an opportunity and make it into something great. Make your students learn and grow despite things that don't work out the way you plan.