Throughout my teaching experiences these past two years, I’ve learned that patience truly is a virtue and that it goes hand in hand with kindness. In order to teach successfully, you need the both of them. The kids will respect and love you a lot more for it.
It is very important to be consistent, especially with young children. You always need to follow through with what you say you are going to do, because if you don’t the children will walk all over you. It’s the same with even how you conduct class every day. The children learn better in an environment where they know what to expect. Inconsistency can be your downfall.
Always be prepared. Prepare your lessons, and even have extra lessons prepared for unexpected reasons whether you have to cover a class that isn’t your own or you only have half of the students in the room. Preparedness is key, and it goes along with consistency. Walking into class with no real lesson plan can lead to wasted time and ineffective learning. It can also easily lead to misbehavior and the children yet again walking all over you.
It’s amazing to watch your children grow and learn throughout the year. Two of my students were actually my old students from a previous school and watching the progress that they made was incredible. It’s not just their language acquisition and comprehension that amazes me, but it’s that the students’ confidence levels over the year have grown so much. Children I didn’t think would ever talk, opened up; students that were doing miserably started turning themselves around with a little extra help and motivation. I love being a teacher and being able to make a difference in their lives. I’m very excited to continue on to my third year of teaching, and this time as a classroom teacher with my own class of around twenty students instead of as a branch teacher who has six different classes every day.
The Educated Momma 