“I Feel Like a Real Teacher”

Teaching as a “new teacher.”

Today was a relatively busy day, but it was interesting and great. I feel like I became a real teacher.

This morning I woke up at 6:30 as usual, I had breakfast, then I went to the school. I was somehow nervous because it would be my first time to teach a class. Even though I was already very familiar about the material, it was still a challenge for me because it’s a sixty-people class, and the students are just two or three years younger than me. Anyway, I had to do that. I was thinking if they really wouldn’t listen to me I’d just stop teaching and wait for them to be quiet again.

However, the situation was much better than I imagine. Once I started talking, I forgot anything but the problem I was teaching. Mr. Shadrack was also around, which made it much easier for me, I went over the homework questions from yesterday (the one which most people got wrong). After that, I introduced another two examples about linear programming.

Linear programming is a term for using the certain method to maximize or minimize an objective function. Students have to sketch the graph first, the get the feasible region, and use the points of feasible region directly from the graph they sketched. So, if the graph is not accurate enough, the answers might be wrong. Sometime even a tine error can result in a wrong conclusion, and if this happens during an exam, they will lose a lot of points. My way is to calculate the points rather than taking them from the graph. I this case, even if I don’t sketch very well, my conclusion will still be right. So I introduced this new method to the class. I think Mr. Shadrack likes it a lot. It took a while to explain it to the students though, because they are form 4 B students, which means they major in humanities, not sciences.

After I came back from school, I again helped Edward planting trees. It was pretty simple: just put the baby pine trees into the holes that the workers made before. However, I still sweated a lot.

In the afternoon, I went back to school to mark some homework. Since it was Friday afternoon, there are not many people and the campus seemed pretty quiet. Several teachers sit in the tea room and played chess. They looked very happy.