ImageHost.org

Courtney Langton

Courtney is an aspiring high school teacher. Her teachables are History and English, but she's happy to teach anything that doesn't involve numbers or formulas. Her particular interest is in promoting gender equity and anti-oppression both in and outside the classroom. She writes a detailed To-Do list every morning, and enjoys nothing more than a good book and a plate of bacon on a rainy Saturday.

Jonathan Wong

Jonathan's primary interest is moral education. His teachable subjects are English and Music. He encourages critical thinking and hopes to teach his students to recognize, and strive for, what is truly important to them without forgetting to be compassionate, tolerant, and open-minded along the way. He likes making analogies and his favourite is one that compares life to jumping on a trampoline.

LINKS: Blogger
Canadian Chalkboard
Coffee, Calculations and Colombia!
Mewlings
Progressively Unnecessary
TeacHer Finance
It's Not All Flowers and Sausages
So You Want To Teach?
Classroom Confessions
Teach Hub
Web English Teacher
Blogging the Renaissance


ARCHIVES: June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 March 2010

RE: First Impressions
Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I found the day exhausting too, and not only because I wound up falling asleep sometime after 2:30 this morning and then woke up on my own at 6:30, an hour before I had to be awake.

No, I found it very overwhelming for many reasons. I didn't notice it right away, but as I left campus this afternoon, I felt incredibly drained. Which I guess is to be expected on the first day of such an "emotionally challenging" (or so says my prof) year.

I was definitely not expecting to be met with 749 other Education students this morning, that's for sure. There were so many people that Jon and I didn't even run into each other once, which was kind of disappointing. I'm not great with huge crowds, and I found myself missing the days of being one in 120 in ConEd. Once we left the auditorium for our classes of 25 students, I started feeling more comfortable.

I met the 7 other students who will be joining me at my placement school this year, which was quite a relief. I'm the most nervous about that practicum, so it's good to know I won't ever feel alone there, especially since I don't know the area well. The professor that teaches what is essentially our Practicum class seems really great-- funny, smart, and very reassuring. He told us in no uncertain terms how tough our placements are going to be, but also let us know that he was there to help us succeed and that he'd do everything he could to ensure that we have a positive learning experience.

The other big thing I did today was attend an optional lecture on teaching abroad. I've sat in on meetings like it twice before, but that was in my undergrad when I still wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do. Now that I'm thinking more seriously about teaching internationally, I felt like I would have a different perspective. The two-hour session was very informative and interesting, but it definitely contributed to my general feeling of confusion and indecisiveness, which probably wasn't the best idea on the first day. Basically I'm left with no clear idea of whether I should stay in Ontario, go to another province, teach in an international school in a non-English speaking country, or work in a public school in an English-speaking country abroad. I want to choose a situation I'll thrive in where I'll have a good chance of being hired, but so far I have NO IDEA what that situation might be. 

I keep reminding myself that my mantra needs to be, "Calm. Down." I have to quiet the frantic voice in my head that stresses me out and tries to convince me that I need to have everything figured out right away. There's no way I could make any decisions on the first day let alone before my practicum starts and my classes are underway. So I'm going to focus on taking things one day at a time and try to make the most of my time here.

Do you remember your first day of teacher's college? (for some of you, it was probably today!) What was it like? Did it all work out in the end? Got any words of wisdom for us new kids?

Labels: , , , , , ,

Courtney posted at 10:39 PM - Comments (1)

1 Comments:

First day felt like my first year of university all over again! There were a lot of people there which made things overwhelming. I somehow got adopted by a group of people at lunch, some of which I feel I may never see again. It was nice not having to eat alone.

The prof 180 class was a nice change. It is certainly a relief to finally feel as if I'm not the only one at my school during practicum (in fact, the professor for the course taught at my associate school for a bunch of years). I also found out that your section and my section will be meeting together at some points (just not as often as other paired sections).

I wanted to go to a work shop and to the BBQ but unfortunately I had to get the keys to my apartment and move in. I'll have to make sure to catch some of the other workshops throughout the year.

If you get the opportunity to teach abroad, I think you should take it. My friend just arrived in South Korea to teach, I can send you the information for the company she went through if you are interested. Everyone I know who has had a chance to teach abroad has absolutely loved it.

By Blogger Ashley, at September 2, 2009 at 10:53 PM  

Post a Comment