The Facade

Smoke and mirrors...that's all it is. When I was fresh out of the UBC Education Department, a colleague whom I respected greatly and who had been teaching for many years told me that it would take at least five years to feel comfortable at the front of the class. My jaw dropped. I couldn't continue to hone my craft for another five years! I wanted to be the best I could be right now. So what do I do in the meantime, I wondered. Continue to have an open mind and soak up as much information as you can, this mentor suggested. Go to professional development workshops after school. Go to in-services offered by the staff at the school. And when you don't feel like you can learn anymore, ask for help from other around you. What wisdom! What excellent advice. It has been my crutch over the years.
Another pearl of wisdom that she passed on to me was not to show the students my uncertainty. And when I don't feel confident, fake it. Be an actor until the role of actor and teacher meld into one. I pushed myself to do things I feared the most. It's not that I conveyed false information; rather I smiled through my pain and quelled the knocking knees. Soon I wasn't able to tell the difference between the actor persona and the teacher persona.
Once again, I've come to uncharted territory. I've put on the mask and the facade is as plain as can be. I don't know where I'm going when I delve into new technology, but I'm acting as if I do. I'm not going to let my fear paralyze me, rather it will be a motivator. I know I will make many mistakes, and it may be a cliche, but I will learn from them. My BMW has a shiny new coat of paint, but have you looked under the hood lately. It needs a good tune up.

Bringing technology into the classroom is still very new to me. We have one working computer in the class that is very, very slow and students primarily use it for word processing. However, the other day, a boy brought in his laptop and just began using it during one of my classes. I have to admit, I didn't know how to take it at first. Yes, I am pro-technology, but he didn't ask permission to start working on it. Once we established that he had permission from the student services teacher and he was using it to type up a story, I loosened up a bit. But the rules had all changed. Now students were hovering around him , wanting to know what he was doing, asking him to look up things on Google, surfing here and downloading there. Yikes, where was the control?! Yes, that's it. I had lost control over my lesson. It didn't stop there. At nutrition break, the laptop came out so that music videos could be played. "Oh, she's so hot," was all I kept hearing from the back corner. As the days went on, my classroom became the hangout at break times. After a week and a half of this I couldn't take it anymore. I needed some clarification and guidelines on laptop use in the grade 6/7 classroom. "It's up to you," my administrator said. No! I wanted a straight answer. So, I've made my decision - the laptop can be used as a tool during class but goes off at break times. I'm now the 'mean ' teacher and my class is no longer the place to be at lunch. Did I do the right thing?