Confidence

One thing that I have certainly noticed over my student teaching so far is the amazing amount of confidence that I have built up. Now, I never have really seen myself as not being confident. I played sports in high school, I've worked with kids in numerous occasions before -- from summer camps to tutoring -- and I've worked as a leader in a few housing positions at my local university. However, being in front of a classroom is a totally different animal.

I think with my previous experiences I was still somewhat of a follower. I don't think this was necessarily a bad thing; it was simply how things went down. Okay, I was the "captain" of my track and cross country teams in high school but that was mainly a seniority thing, and all I really did was organize things and lead the warm-ups. While I was a camp counselor and an RA, I often took a back-seat to some of the other counselors when it came to group decisions.

Again, those aren't necessarily bad things. I was a good teammate and a loyal, hardworking coworker. I still am. But being in front of a classroom has given me the unique experience of being totally in charge. I am very fortunate that my supervising teacher is not a micro-manager. Quite the opposite, she expects for me to be bold and decisive when it comes to my lesson planning and my classroom management. If I bomb sometimes, I have to pick myself up.

And boy, I have definitely bombed a few times -- more than a few -- over this experience. I've made bad calls when it came to classroom management, I've procrastinated, I've had really poorly-planned lessons, and I've overlooked important dates and figures. There has been so much stuff thrown at me at once over the past six weeks and I am only now starting to feel like I have the swing of it. Now that I've said that, some new circumstance will come along, I'm sure.

But you know what? I'm okay with that. Through all of this, I've had to learn from my mistakes and pick up the pieces myself. I've become more confident not because I'm perfect, but because I know that if I screw up, I can simply be a man, say I'm sorry, and work hard to clean up whatever mess I made and move on -- learning to do better the next time. It's been a pretty great experience and it's really shown me what confidence really is. Goodnight, everyone!