Friday, January 29, 2016

The first four

It has once again been an incredibly hectic start to the new school year, and truth be told, after all these years, it has still not gotten any easier to cope with it in spite of the increasing years of experience under my belt. This is partially due to there always seeming to be more things to do, some of it out of sheer necessity (e.g. marking), but others at best falling into the "good to have" category. Hasn't helped that i find myself remaining as distracted as ever, and that i probably take as hard a line on myself to deal with this as i (by nature) do on my students, which is to say, not a hard line at all.

The experience has made me more aware of my own strengths and shortcomings as a teacher though, which has really helped me better come to terms with what i am suited to and what i should avoid like the plague. Thankfully, in many circumstances i've had the opportunity to ease away from those duties that i could never see myself doing well, which is a marked improvement from how things were in the past (which at least from the eternal optimist's perspective has helped shaped how things are like today for me). However, i've still had to deal with a lot of negative or at least unhelpful sentiments that run through my head from time to time, which i think will remain as something to keep a watch out for in the year ahead.

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