I am worn out. Emotionally, if not physically.
Today at the JHS, I (along with the JTE, Japanese Teacher of English) had to teach a lesson to the 1st year students (a.k.a 7th grade) in front of all the local ALTs. In the past, I had done several demonstration lessons, but they were always for either the Board of Education (BoE) or parents. Of course I was always nervous preparing for these lessons; it is difficult not to be nervous when your boss and twenty other people are essentially staring over your shoulder while you work (except, actually, they are staring you in the face). Nonetheless, a certain amount of distance always remains between myself and these groups.
However, this was the first time I had to perform before my fellow ALTs. I discovered that the anticipation of being judged by my peers was far more stressful and frightening. As I was eating my lunch today, my hands were shaking. I knew my poor JTE wasn't any better off. She is a brand new teacher, just out of college, and this would be the first time she did any sort of demonstration lesson. I did my best to give her some idea of what to expect, but I am sure she had to have felt worse than I did. It was for my own benefit, however, that I insisted we go over the lesson plan, point by point, so we would know exactly what to say, who would do what when, which cues to follow, right down to which students we would call on. I simply couldn't tolerate being unprepared in any way. Fortunately my JTE felt similar or, at least, was happy to indulge me.
An hour before the lesson was supposed to start, we went up to start getting the room ready. When I had originally been told that they were planning on having the demo lesson in a regular classroom, I had balked. Those classrooms are already filled end to end with 30 students and their desks. To add an additional 20 people to that would mean they would practically have to sit in the isles and stand right in the doorway. It would be pretty difficult to pretend that they weren't there (my coping strategy) when they were standing right next to me! Not for the first time, I was a little shocked at how unprepared my superiors were for the demonstration, and it was once again left up to me to come up with a solution. Fortunately, it turned out there was a huge empty room right down the hall that would be perfect for our purposes. Again, why no one had even considered this previously...
The only downside of using the room, I discovered as we were getting ready and hour before, was that it was stifling hot from disuse. However, as the entire school building is unairconditioned, this was something I was pretty used to. We opened all the windows and hoped for the best. About twenty minutes before the start of the lesson, the students had to carry their desks and chairs in from their regular classroom. It was pretty funny to watch as every single student was fanning their face with their notebooks, trying desperately to cool off; the JTE warned them they would have to suffer in stillness as soon as the ALTs arrived.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, once the lesson began, my nerves mostly dissolved. I followed an old professor's advice and focused on the kids, pretending, as I said before, that the ALTs weren't even there. This worked for the most part, let me get through what I needed to, while I was certainly more on my toes than usual. In the end, I felt like the lesson went really well, and the kids were so well behaved I wanted to hug every one of them (okay, maybe not... How about stickers instead?). The ALTs filed out, and I helped clean up the room until my supervisor told me the stop procrastinating and go join the after-lesson meeting.
In truth, I had been dreading the meeting far more than the lesson. As nerve-racking as it is having people watch me work, a lesson is still just a lesson. The sole purpose of the meeting was for everyone to get together and pick apart the lesson piece by piece, critiquing our every word and action. I was overwhelmed with eagerness.
Quiet to my delirious surprise, the meeting wasn't painful at all. Everyone was even more silent than usual, and I didn't receive a single significant critique, let alone criticism. Everyone seemed very impressed with the lesson, both in planning and execution. At least one of the ALTs told me that he was even planning on stealing the lesson plan for his own class. I was a little nervous when it was my immediate supervisor's, Mr. Sakazume, turn to speak. However, even he had only praise, and even made an emphatic comment that all the ALTs aught to follow my example and memorize students' names. In the silence that followed, I had to confess to relying on seating charts, for the moment was just too embarrassing to take. One the ALTs suggested that I could also try to be even more "genki"/sickeningly cheerful. "Sorry," I said, "that's as happy as I get."
Even after the meeting, it took a long time for the nerves to wear off. I felt a little shaky from all the stress, even after it was over. Just plain emotionally tuckered out.
So glad to have that experience behind me. Way, way behind me.
Cheers,
sensei Baer
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