"I don't understand this!"

It's Cinco de Mayo, but it wasn't all boozing it up and celebrations. Today I probably had my most frustrating lesson - for my students.

I learned my lesson in 'small-chunking' information. My 9/10s started a new unit only this last Tuesday, and I"m throwing a lot of information at them. Today it reached its peak - I started getting a lot of "I don't understand this at all" , and even worse: "I don't think this is being explained very well." .. EESH, those are words you don't want to hear during your teaching practicum.

But, you know, (and I'm reminding myself of this from my own memory), all teachers - especially of complicated application-based subjects (like math) - hear those words a lot. It can be a dagger through the heart. One can't help but think: "I'm doing a bad job at my job", and it sucks.

It can be taken in any direction - the worst: becoming upset. Being upset is never pragmatic. Though, you wouldn't care when you're upset. No - students are not always going to understand the information you're teaching right away. Sometimes you will make mistakes like I did today by throwing too much new information out at the students at once. But that's OK. the high school schedule is flexible enough for teachers to go back and re-teach. Teachers do it all the time. Teaching is a learning experience for both the students and the teacher.