Lessons Learned: Four Years in the Classroom

Hi, everyone! Good to see you coming here again. I hope you are in well condition.

The school year is finally over. What a roller-coaster feeling it has been to get through this year. Excited, rushed, guilty, stressed, and thankful, I have felt all of them. Those feelings have helped me to grow to be the person I am now. I long to share the things that I have learned so far and hopefully, you may learn from them as well (especially, if you are a teacher too). So, here is my reflection that counts four years of my journey as a teacher. 

(c) Nadya Brigita

This school year started within a pretty short range of time for teachers to do personal preparation. We only had around 4 working days to prepare everything before the first day of school, the day we meet the students. Just like how we always do it at the beginning of school year, the preparation includes classroom decoration, lesson plannings, and teaching materials. Afterwards, there will be lots of teacher meetings and coordination every once or twice a week. And every day will be a tough one. Weekends is what we always wait for (except if you have extra job to do). Hehehe...

Classroom Decoration

First thing first, we need to decor our classroom. This is one thing that takes a lot to make, our energy and time. Me and my teammates had to discuss together about what kind of concept that we wanted to put into our classrooms. After collecting some ideas, we decided to take "God's Green Garden" as the class theme (attached above). The background of this theme is the living things that is also our learning topic in unit 1. The theme encouraged students to grow as if they were a plant or an animal that grows in a garden that God has made. As they learned about this topic in unit 1, they figured out that God created the living things so wonderfully and gave responsibility to humans to take care of them. They also learned how they need to take care of themselves as God's creation and grow according to God's will.

At the time I did the classroom decoration for the fourth time, I started to realize that this is not only one simple thing that we must do at every start of the year, but how we want to give the best impression for the students on their first day of school. Besides that, this also functions as a reminder for them to keep growing as a better person every day as they learn new things at school. That is why, classroom decoration is one important key that we must take seriously to build a comfortable, fun, and encouraging atmosphere for students to learn for one whole year. 

Administrative Tasks

We do know that teacher's job is not merely teaching and presenting things in front of the class. There are more things beyond that. Things that we don't do in front of the class, or we can say, things that students don't know that we do it.

a. Lesson planning

We all agree that we have plans in our life, don't we? The same thing goes for teaching. We have to make plans for the lessons that we want to teach every week. I usually have some discussion first with my teammates about the learning goals, topics, materials, activities, and assessments. These things have to be written as detailed as possible in the lesson plan. 

b. Attendance list

We also have to check the student's attendance at our class. We need to carefully take notes when they do not come to school. Making sure about the reason why they do not come is part of our job as well. Whether they are sick, have another occasion, or without any information, we need to take notes of it every day.

c. Grading

After we teach something, we want students to learn something from what we teach. How do we know that they have learned something? We do assessments by doing activities or worksheets that will measure their understanding. If the assessment is in the written form, we need to grade them, whether by putting score or writing comment/feedback. Two things I usually do to help me finish off my grading is I put aside my phone, somewhere far from me, and set it to silent mode. Beside that, I play music, the fun playlist one, to help me stay energetic and I can sing along too. These really help me to focus and finish off my grading within the expected time (not only eating snacks/candies hihi...).

Classroom Management

Managing the classroom is another job we have. We are the ones who are in charge to manage or rule the classroom. Yup, we are the rulers. We need to make sure all students follow the rules and procedures. We need to make sure they engage with our lesson. We need to make sure they do not play around or busy with something else. If they do play around, then we need to dig deeper about the reason why they do it. If some of them seem to get bored or sleepy in the middle of the lesson, we need to find a way to make them stay awake and motivated to go on. We can't just ignore their behavior and let them do whatever they want. That's a big no! If they keep being like that in every meeting of our lesson, we need to do some investigation with the students individually or our teaching method and technique. At the end of the day, we are the manager of the classroom which means we are the ones who have the rights and orders for everything happens inside. Remember, we must be firm, yet treat them lovingly and fairly.

Relationships Building

This is another thing that I learned since my first year, and it becomes more and more important when I stepped on my fourth year. We build relationships not only with our students, but also with other fellow teachers, school leaders, and the students' parents. Teaching and learning activity will go smoothly and well if students feel comfortable in the classroom. They feel comfortable if we also make a comfortable space for them, which includes how open we are to our students. To be honest, this is one thing that I struggled with at the beginning of every academic year, because I am not that 'open' to everyone. But, as time went by, I learned that being open to them will lead them to be open to me as well. When they are open with the teacher, that is when we start building closer relationships with them. 

In order to have a good teamwork to produce quality work, we need to build good relationships with other fellow teachers. There are times when we have different opinions/thoughts about something, that is exactly where I learn to be more respectful to each other. Not only that, we also need to follow what the school leaders have arranged and made for the community. With our different backgrounds, we have to be united as we have the same goal, to nurture, lead, and guide our students to reach their goals.

Lastly, not to mention, we have to build relationships with the students' parents. They are the prime educators of our students which means the children learns first at home with their parents and family. When their child does not show expected behavior or reach the school standard, we need to contact the parents as soon as possible. We can talk about the causes of the problem and the solution to help the child show improvement. In other words, we collaborate with them. We do teamwork with them.

Well, that's all what I can share for now about my reflection of four years in the classroom. I'd like to end this post with a passage from the Bible. This passage is used as a highlight of this year's graduation theme at my school.

"You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven." - Matthew 5:14-16

As teachers, we believe that we do not only spread the lessons to our students, but we also give light to them. And we want them to spread their light to their surroundings.

~Tangerang, 010724

P.S: all the images above are only for fun :D

Images: teachergoals, boredteachers, weareteachers