My First Month

I've officially been a teacher for a month! It is a strange feeling moving straight from being a "student" to being a "teacher". These past few weeks have been a whirlwind of changes and challenges as I settle into a new job, new environment and new relationships.

There has definitely been many emotions, which if I graphed as a function of time would depict the high frequency ups and downs but an overall stable or upwards trend. The first days had a mixture of excitement, anticipation and anxiety as I met my students, outlined expectations and crammed as many names into my brain as possible. Now, as I am settling into the community of Tamaki College and we approach the middle of the first term, I am feeling a greater sense of belonging making me more secure about my decision to become a teacher. Teaching is something I always enjoyed and found fulfilling. I think the idealism of the potential of education in changing lives really resonates with the dreamer in me. The fact that Tamaki College is a Manaiakalani school with a digital learning environment appeals to my engineering background and the role of technology in learning is something I am very keen to continue to explore.

I had a lot of fun setting up my class website and thinking of the different links and content I could put on it. The vast number of platforms and processes being used has been a tad overwhelming, though I understand the different roles of each. It has made me think more about system design and usability though - how to make things simpler, clearer, faster and overall just as easy as possible. I hope that I can do this for my students when I am teaching them maths. I know that many people view the subject as confusing and difficult but what I really liked about it was how it simply is, there is no difference of opinion or vagueness about an equation. It tells us what is with precision and clarity. I will admit I never considered myself a mathematician, but was more excited about what maths could tell us about the world around us and how we can use it to solve problems and invent solutions. It is a powerful language and way of thinking.

I began teaching to learn more about education, people and myself. Over the past month I have learned more than can be articulated in a paragraph or quantified in a table. As a teacher, I will always have more to learn in order to continuously improve my pedagogy and so in a way will always remain a student.