This is my story... Portia Mahuma

Hooray it's the end of my final year at university!! I can't wait for my graduation day, to finally become a teacher and have my own classroom to decorate, and most of all have fun with my kids. Wait a minute where did I apply?

"I have decided to place you at Lebone college where you are going to be teacher interns. You will gain more knowledge and experience  there. That will be part of paying back your bursary. At the end of the year you will be  placed at one of the Royal Bafokeng schools to change the way they approach teaching."

''Oh well, that's not a problem I'm up for it I'm sure things will be sooo easy!"

My first day at Lebone, I was introduced to my HOD and my mentor and went through all the important things that  needed to be completed. Then the journey began. I started to open my eyes and learn the Lebone way of teaching. Where I learned that classroom routines are taught, that we praise good behaviour and turn a blind eye on negative behaviour, no corporal punishment and sending children outside the classroom. There is a different way of teaching learners to become independent thinkers and always think about their behaviour and being responsible for their own learning and behaviour. I started to see the worth of being a teacher intern at Lebone when I started seeing the different or rather unique style of teacher or their approach to teaching, seeing passionate teachers. Then I realised that actually being a teacher is far more than just decorating the classroom. I attended different Continuous Professional Developments that gave me more opportunities to grow as a teacher. For instance, Professor Shayer's "Let's Think" lessons believe that the focus should be on what the learner achieve more than always focusing on the teacher.

I learned different teaching methods and techniques. To top it off I had to attend New Teachers' Cafe which is a platform for new teachers to share their teaching experiences and how they are adjusting to the new space of Lebone, I learned more techniques, heard different teaching experiences and met older teachers in the profession. Who would know that Mrs Reynolds would still be a teacher now after all she went through? I remember her sharing about the past years (1990's) when they sat and taught under trees. I don't know if I would have coped. Mrs Roberts who was assigned a little corner as her own space. I look at them now, still passionate and loving every single moment of their calling.

Through all of that I learned to become passionate, learned to accept my strengths and weakness as a teacher, learned to comply and complain later, not that I will complain. I learned to be a long life learner and most importantly to learn from my colleagues, share ideas and support one another.

I'm learning from the best and I believe that this space (LEBONE) has offered me the best experience ever!

Setting goals [on the board] at the start of a lesson helps to focus the mind

What I learned is to have your objectives on the board so that the students understand what they are expected to learn from the lesson. Knowing their objective helps to focus the mind. So it is advisable to have an objective per lesson because if you have an objective according to the topic then each lesson won't be meaningful to the student.

So having an objective per lesson helps the learners understand what they should be able to learn at the end of the day. I also learned that using different learning styles help each learner benefit from the lesson -this accommodates all the students. I think I need to practise that technique especially when I present Setswana.

Playing with the number Nine in Grade 1

My mentoring moment of the week  definitely has to be the Mathematics Nine Village the Grade 1's did. They were learning about the bonds of nine and had to create a village using coloured paper, 3 shapes (a square, rectangle and a triangle) to form a house. They were allowed to stick these shapes however they wanted to, but making sure that they are creating a village of nine houses/huts.  After forming the huts/houses they wrote out the bonds of nine, but not necessarily the bonds that consisted of two numbers. They could choose more than two numbers and decide if they should write addition or subtraction sums or both - they had to choose. For resources they used their counters to help them form the different numbers. Another  fun part of the lesson was when they created a name for their village! Creative names that came up included: Nine City, Nine America, Ninena. It was a very interesting lesson.

Mentoring Moment

The best moment is when I heard about how a teacher can keep calm when she has a child that is challenging. It really showed me that teachers are able to control their tempers. And also how they can use various strategies to control both their temper as well as the learners behaviour.

To me discipline is a very powerful thing. It needs a solid, concrete strategy. I think I have a very long way to go to establish solid discipline grounds/standards, because I struggle a bit with appropriate srategies at the moment. So it was very informative to hear about how different teachers deal with discipline and what strategies might be useful and which might not be of use. Hearing other peoples backgrounds was also of interest because you get to relate with them in a way, as you might find that the challenges they had are similar to the challenges you now have as an intern. Hearing where they came from, and how well they are coping now makes us think positively about the challenges that we face but can overcome in order to become the best teachers ever!

Food for thought from Grade 1s

It's always a pleasure to see students learning general things that we do in our daily lives. My mentor and I are currently doing cooking and baking with the Grade 3s every Thursday. My mentoring moment of the week is based on my observation of this cooking and baking lesson. The learners were taught  how to make  rice salad. The interesting thing was to see how children interact with one another and learn new facts and interesting things about cooking. They were learning without realizing that they were actually learning. I gained much from this experience because I have never seen cooking and baking lessons throughout my practical teaching. It  is a really nice experience.

Magnetic Maths in Grade 1

I gave a Maths lesson which was about introducing new concepts of  less and more. It was the first time I taught Maths and I found it very interesting as the learners were giving answers that I didn't think they would give. However, there were some challenges when coming to deal with those learners who needed remedial assistance to grasp this new concept. My mentor helped me where she saw that I was struggling. In this case I was trying to show them how I add when I was doing 'one more' and how I subtracted when I was doing 'one less'. I thought drawing pictures was the best visual aid, then my mentor stepped in and offered me magnetic counters which I could use on the board instead of drawing pictures. This was the best mentoring moment of the week.

Grade 1 use group-work to describe the properties of a rectangle

The best mentoring moment is when I was observing  a Maths lesson, which involved an introduction to the rectangle. Students sat in groups of four. Each learner was given a piece of a rectangle (geo-shapes).  They had to share with one another the properties of the rectangle that they had. After sharing with one another feedback was given by each group, and as a result they all participated in describing the properties of the rectangle.This was the best mentoring moment for me because it was fascinating to see Grade 1 learners engaging in group work / discussions and giving feedback.

Guided reading in Gr.R

The best mentoring moment this week was when I was doing reading. My mentor was doing guided reading with the leaners and the guided reading has three essential steps: scanning, reading, and review. My mentor did the first step of scanning the book with the learners and I had to do the review part. It was quite a challenge for me because I have never done guided reading before. I think with practice I will be able to do guided reading better than I did on this first occassion. Nonetheless I had fun!