OneAndOneIs2

Alo, salut
sînt eu, un haiduc
Şi te rog, iubirea mea,
primeşte fericirea

Alo, alo
sînt eu, Picasso
ţi-am dat bip
şi sînt voinic
dar, să ştii, nu-ţi cer nimic

So begins a song I heard many times when I went on holiday in France some years ago. I was somewhat embarrassed by my inability to understand more than the first line, considering how many times I heard it.

Until I got home, Googled it, and eventually tracked down a ROMANIAN song named "Dragostea din tei" covered by a singer/group named "Haiducci" and quite popular in Europe at the time.

Suddenly I stopped feeling bad for not having done a better job of understanding it.

Today I had two classes to take: One was my lovely year 7 class, who I was doing yet more solar system work with. The main criticism from yesterday was that it had been too long spent on teaching-time: Attention spans for 11 year olds don't stretch much past 15-20 minutes. Thus today, a more chop&change method was wanted, with lots of variety.

It took me till half ten last night, but I got the lesson prepared eventually: Wordsearches, a video, a mnemonic-writing exercise, fill-in-the-blanks, etc.

The little so-and-sos still got it all done so fast I was in danger of having too much time left at the end, so I had them talk about the planets they designed last lesson, and that padded it out nicely.

The other class was the one I have with my mentor, year 9. In a very nice & tactful way, she had basically told me that my lesson last week had basically rated as a "fail" - which I agreed with, I should add, I'd made plenty of mistakes.

So since my university tutor is in tomorrow, I was under a certain amount of pressure to do a lot better today. And since the lesson in the scheme of work was pants, I gave myself the added burden of inventing a lesson from scratch for them.

It didn't go all that well..

I had to shout more than I'd like. I did things in a less-than-ideal order. I had to repeatedly clarify their instructions. I was pushed for time. I had to send out for more indicator solution.

I wasn't expecting particularly great things from the feedback. I was somewhat surprised when my mentor said that she was quite pleased, there had been a lot of positive things in the lesson.

I'd insisted on quiet when it was called for. I'd called out unacceptable behaviour. I'd given good demonstrations of what they were doing and what safety hazards there were. I'd stopped staying behind the desk. I'd circulated well during the practical. I'd used the seating plan effectively. I'd gotten through all the work. I'd referred back to earlier lessons.

I'd forgotten, again, to think in terms of being a novice student teacher. It hadn't been a stunningly good lesson, but it had been a hell of a lot better than the last one, and that's what counted.

Suddenly I stopped feeling bad for not having done a better job of taking the lesson.

It's amazing how much different context makes to how you feel about something...