Baptism By Fire

Today I got my first taste of what teaching in Siem Reap is like, without any expectation that I was going to. When Sydney and I arrived at school today there were just a few classes in the afternoon on our docket to shadow. When we returned from lunch however, Soben (one of the English teachers), told us that the school principal wasn't going to be able to teach two of his classes at the end of the day, which meant Sydney and I were going to teach them. Without any preparation. With hardly any notice.

The expression 'baptism by fire" has always given me mixed feelings, however I completely agree with its philosophy. Whether I was working at Bubble's Restaurant, Porsche or Northwestern Mutual, getting thrown directly into the proverbial fire was the only way to prevent myself from getting in my own way. A new job is a lot like waiting to jump into a pool you don't know the temperature of. You wait to jump in because you fear the initial shock, but once you're in the water is fine. Baptism by fire doesn't allow you to fear the initial shock, because you're already in the pool. 

While I was shadowing the last class before my baptism, I was nervously thinking of material I could incorporate into the class. What came to mind was Shark Week for whatever reason, and my idea was to have the students research various species of sharks and describe their favorite one, and why it was their favorite. When I proposed the idea to the students they seemed interested, and I was excited once we all started heading towards the computer lab.

The moment the students started researching sharks was when I was mentally transported back to high school. Whenever I was in the computer lab, all I could think about was games. Bloons Tower Defense, the Helicopter Game, Castle Clout; I was always so preoccupied with what game I was going to play that my work was usually hastily finished so that I could destroy my tenth castle or set up another array of defenses to ward off the next barrage of attacking bloons. 

Most of the students remained focused throughout the class and stuck to sharks, but some of the students strayed away and started watching YouTube videos of other dangerous sea creatures and even natural disasters. All I could think was now I know how my high school teachers felt, and I guess this is a little karma for playing all those games. 

Surely my next lesson will be able to keep all the students occupied for the full class period, as I will have time to actually plan it. But I have to say I am satisfied with how my first class went. With that being said, I am happy that my first class was taught by the seat of my pants. It's surely going to make the next class a hell of a lot easier.