Teacher or Student?

So I had one. One of those lessons every teacher dreads. A lesson where no matter how well you've planned and prepared, things just don't seem to go right. The students are bouncing off the walls and your carefully planned 'activity' which you put so much thought into and tried to make engaging just ends up making them more hyper. You feel like you are trudging through mud just trying to get them to pay attention. A lesson where all you want to do is stand behind your desk and use it as a defensive shield. A lesson where you know what you could have done better, but you don't have the skills or resources as of yet to enact that.  It was Friday, it was hot, there was a special event on at lunchtime, it was chaos.

I've been trying so hard to remember what it was like when I was a student, trying to conjure up what it felt like to be sitting in that chair, at that desk, looking at the teacher, and then it struck me. I AM a student, still. And I will always be in some way. I've been studying for nearly 6 years post-high school. I stand in front of a group of students and think "What right do I have to tell you what to do?" I haven't got that authority thing yet. I haven't really grasped the fact that I am the adult in the room. I will always be a student, always learning things. But now I have to try and be a teacher as well - how do I do that? How do I walk in authority?

During our uni classes, we looked at a critical incident experienced by Keith Braymore, a class that went wrong, and his response to it. He was able to survive a terrible lesson by talking to colleges who could give him useful feedback and by critically reflecting on his experience from a different perspective. Based on this, I'm going to have a chat with one of the other teachers that I've made friends with and see what she has to say...