New Teacher Induction - Reflection

"Don't struggle to be a better teacher than everybody else. Simply be a better teacher than you ever thought YOU could be." – Robert John Meehan

Welcome to my blog post related to the Beginner Teacher Competencies Rating Scale. I hope you enjoy the read and please feel free to comment.

After completing the rating scale, my score came to a reading of "proficient" for each competency. I am still a student teacher and I am aware that I will learn much more when I experience my first year in the classroom. This teaching practical opened my eyes towards how much I loved learning support and plan to specialise in it further. I appreciate South Africa's diversity and I strive to develop my knowledge in supporting all learner's different learning needs. My downfall for the time-being is most likely subject knowledge. I know a lot, especially for my favoured subjects, but in subjects such as Mathematics, I am a lot weaker in content knowledge. I have been working on courses in addition to my studies to better this. I will never be the teacher that may disadvantage a learner. I feel I am very good at teaching subjects, I make lessons very hands-on, very visual and very memorable for learners. I believe I communicate effectively and these communication skills have actually developed significantly over my final teaching experience as I collaborated with all school personnel and stepped out of my "shy shell." I am very good at unpacking the curriculum and sticking to it's requirements, however I would not say I am 'distinguished' in this competency because I do sometimes experience confusion in the language curricula and understanding how in-depth the content should be. I believe this is something that is yet to come with experience and support from school leadership structures. I do believe I can manage classrooms effectively, but as mentioned, need to work on being more affirmative and not too amiable to be taken advantage of.

There are many areas of growth and improvement that I need to invest in, but it does not worry or concern me for the teaching profession. One of the biggest driving forces is that I have a genuine passion for teaching, I want to help children succeed and believe I have been blessed with the talents to do so. I am very diligent, self-motivated, and organised and I believe these are traits that schools require in classroom environments. I am well aware that the first year of teaching is going to be incredibly difficult and new to me, but with my traits I believe I will integrate into a school effectively and prosper. I am incredibly creative, empathetic and adept at prioritising learner's holistic development.

In consummation, I believe I will be a very competent newly qualified teacher.