Teaching GED classes has been simultaneously the most difficult and most rewarding thing I have ever done in my life. I have never understood perseverance and dedication in the way I do now. I have also never experienced defeat and frustration quite like I have alongside my students. I fell into this internship completely by accident. I had wanted to work in a museum, and if it weren't for the kind and wise words of the coordinator (and now friend) that said "I think you would prefer this...." I don't know where I would be. I am thankful everyday for this falling into my lap. I am also thankful for the trust that the staff at my internship has put into me to be able to run with some of my ideas.
One of the things that has been the most challenging while teaching these classes is how to structure the lessons. I have one hour to cover a single topic from one of five subjects in as much detail as possible. I also have to make it engaging, interesting, and relevant. An experienced teacher would probably roll their eyes at my surprise. Of course these are the things you have to do while planning a lesson, which I now understand so much better. The trick with my GED classes is that I cannot built on lessons we have done in the past, or carry things over from day to day, because each day and each class contains different students. This is partly because some students can only come on certain days during the week, and partly because some students come very sporadically. I attempted a lesson on World War II propaganda the other day that crashed and burned. I was so excited about what I had prepared, but had overlooked the fact about how much background information we would need to cover to get on the same page. I'm constantly learning just as much as my students are.
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