My First Teaching Experience

Dear Diary,

Having spent a number of years in the teaching space, I have decided to document my experiences - the good, the bad, the bold and the ugly; those moments that are ingrained in my memory - the laughing, crying, disappointing, exciting, exasperating and smiling moments.

As my experience spans across different aspects in my career, I will talk about me as a budding teacher, a school leader, a colleague, a trainer, a mentor, my background, the triggering teaching moments, what pushed me to take on the job, what made me stay and what has kept me going.

Diary, this documentation is going to be in a non-chronological method as I have been a teacher for a number of years and it neve occurred to me to document my progress. So as to avoid confusion, I will begin each of my entries on the possible date of the occurrence.

I hope that whoever gets to read it, either learn a lesson, receive a message of hope or just be entertained.

So today, I will go back to my teen years.

As a child in my Church’s Children’s Department, I was an active child who participated in almost every activity but I especially loved to dance, so I was in the Choreography department. I wasn’t envious of the Choir (where my teachers actually wanted me to be) because they had just one uniform (white shirt on black skirt) while we the dancers had a variety of uniforms.

Lessons I drew from my teachers then - when a learner shows interest in something, work with that individual because that is the birth of passion. I also learnt not to abandon my initial thoughts of that learner, but instead, show them the opportunities that they might benefit - why do I say this? Perhaps I could have been a very good singer today if they had showed me that I could do it. Today, I still pick dancing over singing and I can boldly say that I am not a singer - whether good or bad.

Anyway, upon leaving the children’s department as a teenager, I used the last years as a teen up till today, in my forties, teaching both children’s department and teenagers choreography.

And I have children that are now full fledged adults, still look at me with respect and nostalgia, and many times, they remind me of incidents that I have long forgotten.

These memories bring back my own childhood memories of the choreography we were once taught by Aunty Bina and Aunty P.

Let me go think of what to teach right now.