Wonderful People in My Life

I came to realize today how much I love the people in the classes for my major. There are about 15 of us in my class for the PHETE (Physical & Health Education Teacher Education) major and even though I've only known these people for 2 years or less, I feel like I've known them forever.

We justed started the Practicum part of our classes and we're finishing up our second week of going out to New Life Christian Academy (NLCA) and teaching PE classes to Kindergarten, 1&2, and 3&4. My class is split into 2: Group A and Group B. And within those groups are 3 smaller groups of 3 people. Group A and Group B go out on different days and we all rotate with who teaches which.

It's fun when we go out because my whole group grabs a quick lunch together at Chick-fil-a before heading over to the school.

Today was my first day of teaching, and I taught Kindergarten. I can't remember the last time I was so nervous and worried about doing something, but I can honestly say that everyone helped to calm me down and make me less stressed. The amount of help and encouragement from my class was phenomenal. Never have I felt like so many people knew exactly what I needed and what I needed help with. It's what we've all been doing for each other since the teaching started, but since it was my turn teaching, I saw it all from a totally different perspective.

When we were still at Longwood discussing rides and getting equipment and such, I had several people ask me what other equipment, etc. I needed. That was the first thing that made me realize these people are awesome. When we got to the school, since I was first to teach, there was so much to do to set up the gym and move chairs and tables out of the way, and just little tasks like that. But let me tell you, everything got done in about 5 minutes. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE pitched in in one way or another and I felt so relieved so have so much help. I cannot even put into words how appreciative I was, and still am, for the amazing people I work with in my major.

When I was done teaching I had people telling me how good I did when I was teaching and then a few things I need to work on. Normally, getting negative feedback from peers would put me down, but because I've grown to trust these people so much, I loved getting it. I know, weird, right? Even on the ride home I had a friend say again, "you did really well today," and it just really was the icing on the cake and made me feel so much better, and like I stressed over this for absolutely nothing!

I am so looking forward to the next time my group goes back to NLCA, which unfortunately, won't be for another 3 weeks (the week after Spring Break). I won't be teaching this time, so it's less stressing for me =)