It starts.

I’m finally finding a routine again after a fairly tumultuous 6 months.  Today was the final day of week 3 of my final 10 week teaching practicum.  I’ll repeat that for those of you that are asleep at the wheel.

 

FINAL PRACTICUM.

 

Yes, this whole term I’m teaching.  Actually I’m teaching at a high school 25km away.  A nice 20 minute drive most days.  Today was the sports carnival so since I didn’t have to haul a bunch of books down and back I decided to ride.

 

I decided yesterday.  So yesterday I rode for 20km after work just to remind my legs what it’s like to pedal.  They needed it.  From the state championships mid-March until yesterday I have only ridden 905km.  That’s 201km/mth.  That sucks.

 

But as I sit here typing I’ve now ridden 70km in 2 days.  And the first sentence of this post is key… I think I’m in a stable place now so it’s likely I’ll be riding to work and back at least a couple of times a week.  That on top of hitting the velodrome one afternoon a week and riding with the junior development squad Saturday mornings and the regular club race Sunday should see me hitting 600+km/mth.  Maybe even 800.

 

That’s not big numbers unless you remember that my 2 favourite events last 12 and 50 seconds respectively.  So as long as I use my 600 carefully, I should gain hugely from the exposure to the bike and road.  Quality not quantity.

 

I’m still buzzing on the phrase FINAL PRACTICUM.  3 weeks down out of 10.  Week 10 is the week before spring holidays so it’s all throwing Frisbees and doing crosswords.  Either week 8 or 9 will be my on the job interview where a teacher other than my mentor teacher will come in and watch me run several lessons and decide what rating I’ll achieve.  That rating is the rank order for job placements next year for the state education department.

 

All I know is that this week both my mentor teachers have said “you’re doing fine”.  Their only advice has been that my lessons are still a little too much of me doing all the work and the students being at best passive and at worst inactive.  Apparently my lessons are very entertaining but very teacher centred.

 

Teacher centred.  The kiss of death of modern pedagogy (look it up).  So I have 4 weeks to increase my student engagement before my entire 4 year degree is boiled down to a single 1 digit rating number.  Not that I’m worried.  I’m flexible and confident so everything will be fine.  And if it’s not fine then I’ve always got the old fall back… I’m a physics major and there is such an acute shortage of physics teachers that I really only need to have a pulse to qualify.  Hopefully I don’t suck so much that I have to play that card.