Wow, week 1 left me feeling lots of different emotions. Although receiving feedback is something I knew would be happening during this practicum, being given it for the first time was tough. Our first lesson, teaching ukulele to grade 5’s didn’t go inherently bad, but the organization could have been drastically improved. After debriefing the lesson with my mentor teacher and receiving constructive criticism, I was left feeling a lot of self doubt and anxiety. I kept asking myself, “if I can’t teach lessons like these, should I even be a teacher?”. I know now, and I even knew then that it was a silly thought to have, after all, practicums are all about learning and getting better, but I couldn’t help those thoughts creeping up. I was very candid with my co-teacher about how I was feeling, and even my mentor teacher, so we had a few conversations about those feelings and how we can take feedback and transform it to help us.

The following day, we were able to teach that same lesson again, but this time to grade 4 students and with the modifications that were recommended by our mentor teacher. It felt so good! There was nothing that I would have changed about the lesson the second time around, and it instilled a new sense of confidence within me.

Overall, this first week was a huge learning experience for me, and also forced me to manage my expectations. I shouldn’t expect that every lesson goes perfectly and I shouldn’t expect to receive zero pieces of constructive criticism. Especially now, as I teach music lessons, something that I have no background in, this is a time for me to grow and develop. I look forward to the next two weeks as I hope to build better connections with the kids, and continue to take feedback from my mentor teacher to improve upon myself.