My third experience with the middle school class was by far the hardest. The class had become very comfortable with me and as such it was very difficult for me to keep them quiet. Suffice it to say, it was not the most fun for me constantly trying to keep their attention. When I left I was unsure if the students had learned anything that day.

In the classes I taught since then I have not had such a hard time. I have been glad to have students that are well behaved and attentive. I have found that the enthusiasm of the class definitely varies by time of day. I can say the same thing in one class and get blank stares as I do in another and get tons of responses. The more I teach, the better each class has become. I have perfected not only my jokes but also by activities, questions, and visual aids. Each time I look forward to trying something new. (Quick note: if you are ever teaching multiple classes and you have jokes, the students talk to each other so it’s smart to have plenty of material).

Sometimes my ideas work well, other times they don’t. An example of something that did not work is when I tried to illustrate to a middle school class the importance of diversifying their investments. Since there math skills were not at the level I thought they would be, the game crashed and burned. I had to spend the whole time explaining how to do the math. It was not good. Since then, I have learned to have a contingency. If something is not working, I simply move on to something I know works well.

Of the limited hours I have spent teaching; it has mostly been middle and elementary school students. I look forward to teaching high school, because I am most enthusiastic about the higher level concepts I learned in economics classes throughout college. I was first turned onto economics in high school and I know the students have the capacity to understand the material. Find out next week what I love most about economics.