First week jitters

This past week marked two different firsts for me: not only did I begin my master's program in secondary education, I also began my job as an English language assistant in a colegio concertado in Valdemoro. As far as first impressions go, I'd say it's been a bit of a mixed bag all around.

In terms of the master's program, I have the sense that the classes themselves will be fairly interesting. I expect it will be a healthy balance between the content I learned during my education minor during my undergrad (content that, to be honest, I have either by now forgotten or allowed to go dormant in the recesses of my mind) and new methods of instruction. I'm most excited to learn about new and engaging activities with my students in the classroom. An aspect that worries me, however, is the required group projects for every subject. On the one hand, working in groups is a good opportunity to share the workload and therefore avoid becoming overwhelmed; on the other, some professors are asking us to form our groups within the next week or two, and I feel like in that time, I won't have had the chance to know my classmates adequately enough to determine whom I want to work with.

My first impression of my new colegio is that it is very big and colorful, and I fully anticipate getting lost for the first week or two. I haven't had the chance yet to meet or talk with all of the teachers I'll be working with, but that will come next week. The co-workers that I have met seem lovely, and it's nice to know that there are people with whom I can collaborate on planning and creating lesson materials and presentations. The downside is that due to a miscommunication from the person who originally assigned me to the school, most of my hours are with primary- and pre-school-aged students; while I normally wouldn't mind working with these age groups, doing so this year doesn't seem very practical given that I am concurrently studying a master's that is very specific to secondary education. A part of me can't help but feel that, however lovely these students might turn out to be, and however much I might end up enjoying these grade levels, it is to some extent a waste of my academic time. I feel frustrated that the school can't do more to substitute my current primary hours with secondary ones, especially when I've told them from the beginning that I am doing a master's in secondary education.

It's also hard, too, when the few secondary classes I do have involve content that, to me, seems quite boring and that will require a fair bit of research and condensation on my part to make it accessible to the students. I keep reminding myself, however, that this could be a good opportunity as well: as a teacher, I can't expect to love or be fully interested in every single thing that I teach. The challenge, therefore, is to find a way to push through the parts that I find dull without transmitting this sensation of boredom to the students. I'm not really sure yet how, or even if, I'll be able to accomplish something like this.

I feel like this first blog post has more or less been a sort of laundry list of initial complaints. At the same time, however, I feel like there is value in putting these complaints into words. I've always felt that, no matter how daunting it might seem to do so and how inadequately I might express myself, putting something into words allows me to take a certain measure of control over what I'm experiencing. It's kind of like the labelling practices that are sometimes used in meditation: we try to put a label on sensations, like "thinking" or "feeling", because doing so can help us identify, control, and ultimately manage just what it is we are thinking or feeling.