Restoring Connections

All in all, I have learned that teaching is a lot of work and that teachers deserve to get paid more. There were definitely some positive consistencies that I had throughout the past six weeks, but with those, there were 18 other problems to go with it. I learned that patience is something that I needed to work on as I often found it difficult to keep a level head when students were consistently not listening. Keeping a level head would have likely helped in the long run with their attitudes since attitudes tend to be contagious. My last field trip I felt that I was finally able to be calm when kids were complaining and I felt that that trip went much better. I was able to adapt to that throughout the term as I put other mini activities in my back pocket in order to stall time a bit. While there were many problems throughout these trips, both in and out of my control, some positives do need to be focused on as well. I always did a great job at curating specific feedback for the students, specifically compliments when they did something well. I wanted to make a point to make every student feel special in their outdoor learning environment so that they had positive associations with it. The highlight of my experience was on our walk back to the school, one of my students informed me that she didn't want to go back to school because the trip was "better than recess!"