On the 2nd of October 2017, I spend my first day as a first year in Marino Institute of Education. I am studying Bachelor of Education in order, to be a primary school teacher. Long story short, I loved it! This year was one big exciting blur. I suppose I best split the year up into different sections – semester one, second semester, placement and the Gaeltacht.
Semester One
It was very different. It was a big adjustment from working five days a week. I commute to and from college. My mum or dad drop me to the luas every morning and then get the 123 Dublin bus to Marino and then get the bus home. Lectures begin at nine until usually four, sometimes five. The days were long with new lecturers and lots of new classmates. Don’t get me wrong, I loved every minute of it. The set up of lectures were like school. They began at nine, lasting fifty minutes, with a twenty minute break at eleven and four and a two hour lunch break. This is to facilitate the students who engage in extra curricular activities like football, hurling and choir. This break was particularly helpful in getting to know people during the first semester.
Like most people in my year, I didn’t know anyone. I was really excited about that. I love making new friends. However, at times it was lonely and I frequently felt awkward and out of place. But I began to realise that these feelings are normal and everyone feels at some stage in college. As we spent a solid eight hours together, four days a week (Yes four days, Marino closes on a Friday. I know it’s unreal! Three day weekend!), we all became quite close.
I found myself drifting from group to group trying to make and find friends. I made friends with a girl from Kerry who lives on campus. This made going out easier as it’s tough being a commuter. Side note: this girl is a gem for always letting me stay over whenever! By Christmas, there was a steady pattern of girls I would sit with in lectures and at lunch. Little did I know, how close and comfortable I would become to feel with these girls.
Regarding lectures, we did religion, philosophical and historical understanding of education, múineadh na Gaeilge (teaching of Irish), Gaeilge (Grammar), Art, SPHE, Professional Studies, Psychology and Teaching and Learning. For the most part, these lectures were exciting and fun, psychology was tough and long. My favourite was Teaching and Learning. This was where we were set tasks called Explanation, Storytelling, Discussion and Tasks. Each of these tasks were to last for five minutes and we had to present each task in front of our peers. At first, these tasks were completely embarrassing as we had to perform these tasks as the teacher and our classmates pretend to be children. Our classmates would also fill in evaluation sheets while doing these activities in order to suggest how to improve. The aim was to tick every box and the tasks were timed, just like it would be in the real thing in May.
May seemed so long away so nobody worried. This exam would take place in a ‘fake classroom’ with five or six real children. Essentially a twenty minute timed lesson. In order for us to get used to being in front of children in a timed setting, each class was split into two and we visited a third class in a real school. It was so daunting but the best fun. We started going to schools in November. Terrifying to say the least, but once you realised everyone felt exactly the same. It was also nice to see how your peers come across as teachers.
So it’s December, and I haven’t been able to go out once. The uncertainty surrounding friends, commuting and being sick for one of the nights out organised by the college, prevented me from attending. We completed one assignment, which we had three weeks to do. It was an Irish Múineadh na Gaeilge assignment and I found it so difficult. It was based off a chosen children’s book and how you would hypothetically teach this book to a class. It had so many little elements and it was very time consuming. I had my family colouring in resources because we couldn’t photocopy the book. Over Christmas we were set two assignments, a group SESE assignment and an Art journal. I came to learn that group projects are the vain of my life. But I’ll save that for another post!
So semester one drew to close. There were rumours that the ‘fun’ times were over and semester two was much tougher. Yet, nothing would have prepared us for what was to come. Stay tuned, for a new post coming very soon xoxo
Peppering My Thoughts 