#2: Reflections - My Teaching Practicum Experience (Secondary Sch)

As a young trainee teacher, I am no stranger to understanding the fear of stepping into practicum or starting the life of being a teacher. Through my experiences, a few things have helped me significantly that I hope will help you along this teaching journey too. 

Clear Goals in Mind

Before entering my second practicum, I had two main goals as a trainee teacher. The first was to do my best, focusing on students’ learning and enjoyment. The second was to learn. Treat challenges as an opportunity to learn. Simple, yet so challenging simultaneously. 

Stepping into a new environment, learning the ropes of the job, experiencing a steep learning curve, trying to meet personal and others’ expectations, ongoing rigour of lesson preparations, and the list goes on. Everything can seem so intimidating. There are certainly times when I have been distracted and overwhelmed by external factors and situations beyond my control. Lessons which do not turn out how I would have wanted it to be. Feelings of insecurity and doubts are scaled to high magnitudes. “Am I good enough?”, “Would I meet their expectations?”, “Do my students like me?”. Essentially, losing sight of the things that should be truly important to me. 

This are the moments this when the goals that I had set in mind became so important. They helped to redirect my attention back, because we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse. With these goals that I set out, I hoped to be a student teacher eager to learn and try, being able to set aside my ego and, inevitably, my fears (for most parts). With that, I diverted more time thinking of novel ways to engage my students in my lessons, engaging in sports activities whenever possible and understanding their different and unique personalities. Surprisingly, with these goals in mind,  I further extended my help to the department/school whenever possible. For I believe that every child is never ours alone. They are ours together. With these explicit goals in mind, I knew that no matter what the outcome or situation may be, I shall have no regrets as I have made the best out of the situation that I had been given. 

Community

It is important to be surrounded by a conducive and nurturing community. I was intentional with the people I was hanging out with, for I grew to be aware of the effects of an echo chamber. As I was once surrounded by an unhealthy community,who focused on the negatives of their experiences, I found myself losing focus on the things that mattered and the many wonderful things of being a teacher. It is useless to blame our experiences on others or ourselves,  endlessly trying to prove our worth by comparing with others and constantly chasing after an unsatisfied desire. We end up bearing so much anger and fear and being constantly out of breath.

Moving on from that experience, I realised that I had to stop squadering my time and effort. The truth is, there are no perfect CTs. No perfect students. No perfect trainees. Essentially, there is no perfect practicum experience. We are unable to choose our environment. However, some choices are still within our control. I tried to be intentional with the community that I was surrounded with. I shut out potential distractions and surrounded myself with people who shared the same ideals. These people were supportive. They were critical. They were honest. They constantly reminded me that it is not reasonable to demand a positive experience all the time. 

Meanwhile, I could choose to accept a negative experience to be a positive learning experience. We are much more adaptable than we think we are. We need to lose the illusion of control over the things that are way beyond our control. As long as we strive to be open-minded and are willing to receive feedback, we are moving forward as trainee teachers. However, during the fleeting moments of doubt,  our community can be extremely crucial. 

Everything in Moderation

Moving forward from my first teaching practicum experience, I understood the importance of having things in moderation. For example, striving to have a work-life balance to ensure that I do not burn my entire weekends on work and to give myself ample rest. This provided me with enough time to slow down, reflect on my work and recalibrate accordingly for the week to come. Another example would be to balance between building rapport with students and upholding the authority of a teacher in class. Many beginning teachers, like myself, struggle to strike that balance. I believe that having everything in moderation does not just apply to teaching. Nothing in life is good without a healthy balance. 

In closing, as much as I did, I genuinely hope you enjoy and embrace the process. I can sincerely say that by focusing on the things that truly matter, this experience showed me so much good and hope in the next generation. I hope to continue to do so throughout my journey as an educator. In fact, I was truly saddened when my second practicum had ended. This also marked the end of my time with the school. I was extremely fortunate to be blessed with nurturing cooperating teachers (CTs) and a school environment. Thank you, Mr David Vaithilingam, for having trust in my decisions and I will always remember your three golden rules, maybe not the last; and Ms Cheryl Ong, for your utmost kindness and for keeping my best interests at heart. Although a truly bittersweet feeling, I have left the school feeling very loved, and the experience strengthened my belief in the value of this job. As Helen Keller had said, “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart.” 

Note: Ms Melissa Leow is currently teaching in Yuying Secondary School. You may contact her at  melissa_leow_lifang@moe.edu.sg.