Life as a Trainee Teacher - Introduction

My teaching practicum started on 1st August 2014 and ended on 31st January 2015.

So... For the past 5 months, I was a trainee teacher. I had my practicum at a boarding school, located at a rural village in Taiwan. The students have to stay in school for the whole semester, and the parents can only get to visit them on certain occasions. Students have to stay away from computers, televisions, phones, or any sorts of electronic devices that can let them connect to the internet or video games. I was once a student of that school before.

Well, anyway, I had my teaching practicum at the Elementary School (Primary School), teaching in a 4th Grader's class. I taught Science. There are 40 students in the class, and they are all unique individuals. They may be mischievous, but they are definitely sweet and adorable children!

Before my practicum started, my apprehension somehow overwrote my anticipation. The reason was, I never had any interactions with that batch of students before. Throughout my college days, I had opportunity to serve at other classes. As for the class I was attached to, the students are not the sociable kind. That's why I had never interacted with any of them before.

Not until the first day of school, when they reported back to school, I realized that how small the world is. I worried too much. Some of my students are my friends' younger brothers and sisters, while some are teachers' sons and daughters, some are my sister's classmate's sister, or my brother's classmate's sister, whereas a few are my ex-student's younger siblings. This can be an advantage and disadvantage as well.

The advantage is, it connects me to the students faster. The disadvantage is, they treat me as a big sister instead of teacher.

In my next few blog posts, I am going to share sweet and bitter stories about different kinds of kids that I came across to.