NAILED IT!

Yesterday I did a lesson on the importance of city grids and how much you can tell about a city just by looking at a satellite image of it. We talked about the characteristics of the old and new sections, rich and poor districts, business section, and so on. Then we spent the next part of the class looking at satellite images, using Google Maps, of fifteen different cities from around the world including: New York, Boston, Chicago, LA, London, Paris, Dublin, Sydney, Tokyo, Beijing, Manila, Johannesburg, Reykjavik, Wellington, and Rio de Janeiro.

But in any case, I had an informal observation yesterday too where my department head snuck in the room and observed me for about 15 minutes. I didn't even see her come in, it was just all of a sudden she was in the back of the room taking notes. I thought it went well, some parts were a little shaky but all in all I was pleased.

I just saw my department head this morning when I walked in and she asked how we wanted to go about "debriefing." I told her whatever works best for her was fine and right then and there she started discussing my lesson in the middle of the main office (no one else was there yet - it was about 6:30am). But she loved it, she said I was animated, I did a great job getting the kids to participate, she thought it was really well done including my Prezi and she appreciated the global perspective on how all cities develop in the same manner and have similar characteristics.

It was a very validating, although brief experience for me, this was the first real time I was observed and critiqued outside of student teaching or the current program I'm in. I'm not saying that those observations/evaluations haven't been beneficial, but at some point those experiences have been more about so focussed on a person trying to be a teacher and learning about what that means (if that makes sense). This was one of the first times I was evaluated for being exactly who I was, without any preconceived notion that "I'm in the process of figuring this out."

It was just nice to be seen and evaluated as a real teacher, not just some form of student teacher.