Absurd Practice Teaching Moments

One of the most exciting aspects of an education student's life is practice teaching. It lets a student apply all the concepts, principles, and lessons learned throughout his or her academic career. It is during this time when aspiring instructors are given the opportunity to interact with real students and convey knowledge to them.

On-the-job training (OJT) for aspiring teachers is known as practice teaching. Those who do business and other courses are likely to earn some money during their OJT; meanwhile, student teachers are usually the ones who spend money in exchange for their services. This is a manner of spending money on educational materials.

As a former education student, I was also ecstatic about the thought of experiencing teaching practice. I imagined to finally be able to go into a true teaching-learning setting. There are times in life though, when our expectations are not met, and we receive the exact opposite of what we hoped for. The experiences I had were far less than I had anticipated.

We were given the opportunity to teach both primary and intermediate levels during the apprenticeship, so after one and a half months of teaching a specific grade level, we had to reshuffle and pick a new grade level.

I was appointed to teach 3rd grade students during the first shuffle, but to my dismay, I was assigned to the final section at random. We simply have to watch and learn from our cooperating instructors on the first day of duty. My first day has not gone well. My cooperating teacher only did one thing: she let the kids sing Kumukutikutitap, a Filipino Christmas song, to stress that it was just September at the time, and it was still too early to start practicing for the Christmas show. I felt like my ears were going to bleed from listening to the kids sing that song all day. The music was still playing on my mind when I got home that afternoon, and worse, it was even playing in my dreams. The next day, it was on my mind again, thanks to the children singing it the entire morning.

We were expected to teach one to three subjects first because we were only apprentices at the time. However, this is not the case for me. The teacher handed me the books for the 10 subjects and ordered that I submit lesson plans the following day. I taught four subjects the next day, and by the fourth day, I had covered all the children's subjects. My classmates, on the other hand, only have to teach two subjects per day.

Even though I thought it was a little unfair, I saw it as an opportunity to challenge myself and show that I am capable of more than what is expected of me. With that class, I had a lot of not so good yet memorable experiences.

When I was teaching an English poem, a student sought for permission to go to the restroom. I gave him permission. But, alas! A few minutes later, I was surprised to see him hanging from the ceiling, making strange faces to annoy his classmates. I reprimanded him and advised him to get down because it was unsafe and he might fall and injure his head. The following day, the same student caused a ruckus once more. He threw a tantrum after a fight with a classmate. His classmates were engaging in the activities I assigned, but he sneaked inside the hanging cabinet and hid. It was difficult to persuade him to go out. When I told the teacher about it, though, she merely laughed.

After that happened, a few weeks had gone. Since my cooperating teacher was running late one afternoon, I began the Mathematics session without waiting for her. I moved my gaze away from the children for a few moments to set up the materials we'd be utilizing for that lesson, when I heard several children giggling outside. What did I see, by the way? I spotted three boys, all of whom are my students, playing in a puddle outside the classroom. They rushed inside while I was preoccupied. At that point, I was on the verge of losing my cool and giving up. I've met a lot of kids over the years, but those are the most disorganized, difficult to manage, and annoying children I've ever met.

I love that they don't keep grudges, even though they are really bothersome and I reprimand them on a daily basis for being rowdy. I'd scold them, and after a few moments, they'd come back and be clingy, hugging me and sharing their food with me. When it came time for the shuffle, they didn't even want me to go. They would come into my classroom to give me sweets and fake flowers even after I had been transferred to a different grade level. The boys occasionally come into my classroom to irritate the older students.

Those were some of the more bizarre encounters I had with the kids during my practice teaching days. ​I'll write about the second shuffle in the next article.

Lead image from shutterstock.com