WEEK TEN REFLECTIONS (30/4/2012 – 4/5/2012)

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.