This
is the last week of my practicum. As such, I will use this opportunity to do an
overall reflection of my practicum experience. In the first place, I have to
admit that being a practicum teacher is completely different from a contract
teacher. Last year, I had no need to plan my own lessons and generally only had
to adhere to the instructions / lesson plans of my mentoring teachers. However,
as a practicum teacher, I had to take charge of the entire JC1 H2 History
cohort and plan for both my lecture and tutorial lessons. Undoubtedly, this was
an immensely challenging task, but it was sweetened by the fact that I could
assume personal ownership of teaching the JC1 Southeast Asian History, and the firm
demonstration of my Cooperating Teacher’s confidence in me despite my lowly trainee
status.
In addition,
I was given a first taste of the full job scope of a full-fledged teacher. Other
than my routine teaching responsibilities, I also had to be involved in CCAs
and other ad hoc or regular school committees. Such non-academic commitments (such
as preparing for the Humanities Carnivale 2012) were at times extremely time
consuming and ran the risk of distracting me from my key teaching duties. Similarly,
the need to bring students out for CCA competitions also served to minimise the
free time available for me to do detailed lesson planning, forcing me to juggle
between my desire to focus solely on teaching and the need to fulfil the necessary
roles and responsibilities which the school expected of me. In short, I fully
realised the importance of prioritising my time as a full-fledged teacher, particularly
as the rising frequency of student consultations further reduced the relatively
free time-slots which I had briefly enjoyed during the first few weeks of practicum.
Finally,
I was really happy to be able to establish a smooth and solid rapport with my
students, without which my confidence as a practicum teacher would probably have
been severely shaken. After all, it is my strong belief that a good
student-teacher relationship can make or break my teaching career and fundamentally
determine whether the teaching profession is suitable for me over the long term.
In this respect, the surprising lack of a generation gap between me and my
students worked in my favour, allowing me to present myself as an open-minded,
youthful and energetic teacher to the highly impressionable students. Hopefully,
I will be able to retain this energetic drive and continuous passion for
teaching long after the conclusion of my practicum.