Well there's nothing like a plunge in at the deep end!
I should have realised when I walked into a classroom and there were only girls there, but it took me a couple of minutes to register. Yes, on my first lesson back it was a double group of year seven girls for the PSHE lesson on puberty! They had had the session with 'the tampax lady' (a new superhero?) and now it was my turn to put them at ease and answer all their questions about growing bits!
I had this odd emotional mix of amusement, and real sense of responsibility. It suddenly hit me that for some of the students, I was their main source of information about all the weird stuff that they were feeling and going through. What I was going to say mattered. It would influence how they felt about themselves. Much more scary and mich more of a privilege than telling them about old dead people.
My friend Christine wrote this amazing piece on influencers.
It came home again to me today that the role of the teacher really is a responsible one (wonder if that means I shoudn't have told the story about the reputable Christina leader getting kicked in the groin when he was eleven... twas a cautionary tale!)
I should have realised when I walked into a classroom and there were only girls there, but it took me a couple of minutes to register. Yes, on my first lesson back it was a double group of year seven girls for the PSHE lesson on puberty! They had had the session with 'the tampax lady' (a new superhero?) and now it was my turn to put them at ease and answer all their questions about growing bits!
I had this odd emotional mix of amusement, and real sense of responsibility. It suddenly hit me that for some of the students, I was their main source of information about all the weird stuff that they were feeling and going through. What I was going to say mattered. It would influence how they felt about themselves. Much more scary and mich more of a privilege than telling them about old dead people.
My friend Christine wrote this amazing piece on influencers.
It came home again to me today that the role of the teacher really is a responsible one (wonder if that means I shoudn't have told the story about the reputable Christina leader getting kicked in the groin when he was eleven... twas a cautionary tale!)
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I've changed your "Where Am I?" so that it doesn't say November anymore. Says February now though so you'd better update us!! :o)