I love the time I spend teaching students. I love watching them grasp new concepts and enjoy my classes. However, it's been tough for me to prep. I am like a dog. I circle around, sniff out, and study where I'm going to sit, or more accurately, what I'm going to teach. Until I've looked at a concept from many different perspectives. My perspective is no longer good enough. My understanding is no longer good enough. I don't want to give the students incorrect or incomplete information. I want to know every way they can perceive what I'm teaching. I want to look at all of the ways a has been taught.
What all of this means to me right now is that there's a lot of work to do. Obviously, I haven't been posting a lot. This is harder than the semester I was taking all senior level courses as a junior (including scene design), doing my first round of student teaching on a topic I also knew nothing about, designing hair and makeup for a show on a strictly volunteer basis, and directing a main-stage play. Actually.... in hind sight, maybe it isn't. It's just different.
Everything I did in college, I was on the student end (except for mainly the student teaching). If I didn't do so well on a project or paper, it only affected me. Now, if I don't do well, it effects about 70 students. It's a lot of pressure, plus every step of the way I'm being critiqued by not only those 70 students, but the teacher and my supervisor as well. I just want some time for me, unfortunately, it's not available.
I want so badly to do well and I'm so afraid of failing. So far so good... I got evaluated for the first time today and it did go well. Here's hoping the trend continues.
