This is really long, but please read it :) I think there are some valuable things in here.

  Frustration. Anger. Pretty much any word that has a negative connotation is applicable to how I was feeling after my group leader work. I was so irritated at myself for being so nervous! I couldn't help but to continuously think about the flow of the activities throughout the 20 minutes and I was trying to be aware of the time frame that I had to work with, and I do feel that I could not relax and be myself, because I was overemphasizing these aspects. This is not anyone's fault but my own because I am the one who was over thinking these aspects of teaching. 

I felt totally defeated. Once I got home I was questioning my ability to teach. I thought "Oh my gosh. Why am I even thinking about this profession? I'll probably just always be too nervous and I'll never be able to present my ideas without feeling this overwhelming anxiety." (Dr. Mortimore, I'm not saying that I hated this experience or that I hated the assignment. I think it's a great thing to have us do. I really liked my ideas and activities that I came up with, so it really wasn't a totally bad experience...I'm just saying that this is my first experience with having these feelings, but it's a good thing because, well...keep reading!) BUT I know this is not true. It's true that this is what I thought. It is true that I felt just awful after leading the group. What is also true is that I have taught (in a teacher's assistant position) and felt very comfortable as well. I had taught a lesson a few weeks ago and nothing of how I felt Wednesday night was present in my experience as the teacher. 

Also, the funny thing is, I had to teach the next day, after my experience on Wednesday night... I so did not want to teach. I was definitely not in the mood. But, as I reflect upon what I was thinking and how I was feeling, I think that I knew I had to do it (teach) and so I just faced that fact. As I started I seriously just jumped right into what I had planned. The crazy thing is.........I did not feel nervous. At all. I felt completely relaxed, like myself, and ready to explore the text that we had read.

To make things even better, this was the most amazing experience that I have ever seen. I'll tell you a little about the class. It's a class that has zero English majors, so many of them are not innately interested in literature--they're just fulfilling a credit requirement. Many are freshmen that don't have much of a background/ experience with literature. I'm not pointing out these qualities to suggest that my students are "dumb" or that they are unable to comprehend the things that we talk about. In fact, they present very thought provoking ideas and I was so impressed with them today.

Today was the day that they seemed to finally warm up to...to me, to the actual professor, to the concepts that we were talking about, to the thinking process. It was truly amazing. I structured the lesson around discussion, with a writing assignment that I'll talk about in a second. But with the discussion: The professor doesn't really use this much when she lectures. Well, she asks questions and allows the students to respond but many times she cuts them and their thoughts off, and then adds her opinion/thoughts to conclude what the student has said. So anyway, we discussed a lot about "Happy Endings" which is a metafiction (and really different and interesting). I had the time to allow everyone who wanted, to express their thoughts and opinions (this is something that I value--having all voices heard. I know that not every time this is feasible, but when it is I think that you will get very good feedback). The students were engaging with the text, telling me how they interpreted things and how they felt the characters were, in their eyes. More hands went up, as others shared. They were kind of seeing how I reacted to what their peers were saying, I think, to see if it was "safe" to voice their thoughts. 

I would also like to mention that the students who always participate in that class were more silent than normal. Two of the students say at least six or more things during a class and today they said maybe two things. I believe that this may be because they are a product of their environment, meaning that they (like me) have not been taught how to connect and discuss how we were--openly, freely, emotionally...They may have been used to "ok, here's the simile, this is what the author means," etc. Perhaps something unrelated to class was affecting them. Who knows. I just thought it was interesting to see this correspondence. 

So anyway, I had the students summarizing and applying their thoughts, feelings, etc to the text, for each option (the literature involves six "options" the writer provides (option A, B, C, D, E, and F). Each option talks about a certain scenario for the characters. Like, option A involves a "picture perfect" story of John and Mary. They have a nice house, nice jobs, and nice relationship. Then option C involves John being a jerk and not caring about Mary. Each option is different, talks about the beginning and ending of stories in general...the authors point is that the middle of a story is the most important part). This could have gotten mundane and boring, but I think that the pace that we had as we went through the text allowed it to not take forever, while still allowing all of the students to have their voice being heard. 

After we did this, I had them all get into 8 different groups of about four to five students in each group. They were to write a story, an option E, that differed from the options provided in the text. I was a little hesitant to put them in groups for fear that not everyone would participate. I asked them to make sure it is a collaborative writing and encouraged them to allow everyone to participate in the process from mind to paper. And they did!

Another side note: I said that I would like to have them all write in paragraph form, BUT if they were having problems with coming up with ideas that they could use bullet points. All eight groups wrote in paragraph form. I think that giving them this option made the task less scary or less intimidating, and they were willing to give me a nice response in return for allowing them to have some type of independence. 

As I walked around the room, to each group and sat in to listen to them, I was so excited to hear what they were coming up with. They were amazing. Also, one girl asked if her group could make two of the characters come back to life (in the options from the story they end up dying) and my response was "sure! You can do what you want with this." I really think that they enjoyed the freedom that they had while creating their work. They were so creative too. One group had secret agents, another involved going to Europe, one had a man buried alive, and another involved a woman killing her husband without anyone knowing and then marrying her dead husband's father.

So, each group went around and shared what they came up with to the entire group. I asked them to read what they wrote, instead of deterring from their writings. (I wanted to see how they were able to have the story flow, and they had a good amount of time to create their work. Sometimes I like being able to add to and not read directly from what I wrote, because sometimes I don't have enough time to write down everything in my head. I really wanted to hear what they wrote though...) 

We were laughing together, able to connect certain themes to what they wrote and aspects stemming from "Happy Endings," such as an element of surprise. The stuff that they wrote was AWESOME! The professor even said, "Wow. I'm really impressed. Some of what they wrote was better than the actual authors!"

It was really cool to see the students interacting with one another, hearing their thought process, and seeing how they formed their own, original writing. There was such a relaxed, accepting (of their thoughts) aura. 

One student really stood out to me, and to my professor. We both noted that he was smiling at certain points during the lesson. This is HUGE. This student seriously sits throughout class, very glazed over, and detached from everything that we do. Getting any emotion, even as insignificant as a smile, meant so much to me. He seemed to interact more and I could tell that there was something different with him today. Although there is much more growth that I hope to see within this student, today gave me hope. Hope that these students that seem so "out there" and so detached from class are able to change. You have to try different things, different ways of presenting material... 

I'm not sharing this with you to merely share my two drastically different experiences, just for the sake of sharing them. I want you all to know that it is basically inevitable that you will experience a day where you are really doubting your career, your ability to teach, or not being satisfied with your performance in the classroom. Even though this will happen, I want you to know that you are good enough to teach. If you are passionate about what you want to do and are willing to learn from your experiences and are able to get passed your "road blocks" (anything that re-directs your thinking pertaining to your career, ability, or performance) then you should not give up. 

It doesn't matter if you're not the top of your class, if you’re not perfect, if you’re not happy with something that you have done (like me being unhappy with my performance in class). You can still reach students, no one's perfect, and you can learn from your mistakes. We are just merging into the thoughts of teachers and just now being introduced to having our own class. We are not going to get it right every time, even when we have been doing this for years. But I urge you to keep going. Shake it off, find out what you can do to make it better next time, and go. I know that when I teach what I presented Wednesday night in my actual class, I want to move around the classroom more, I want to give even more think time since the Holocaust is such a heavy subject and students may not know what to think right away, spend more time on what I presented in general, and not seem so nervous! 

Even though the Wednesday night experience was not fun, I am glad that I experienced what I did in a way. I think that this "project" is awesome and I love it. It really gets us up there, in front of the class, and allows for a very real experience. I have learned that I will have negative experiences in the classroom. Well, it's not all that negative. Yea, it pretty much sucks that my nervousness probably affected my grade, but I have learned something that far outweighs the mere concept of a grade. I'm so glad that I was forced to have to teach the very next day. I personally needed this so much. It has allowed me to realize that I will have tough days teaching, but that those experiences don't mean that I can't teach. And I guess that is what I want to portray to you. That even though you have a not-so-positive occurrence you can still be and develop into an amazing teacher that can reach that one student that seems disconnected, uninterested, or negatively approaching your class.