A shaky start!

Fourteen eager faces looking at me....

Gosh, I'm nervous!

Somebody once told me that if you are nervous about public speaking, that the best way to get over it was to imagine your audience naked....Well!  Hmmm, I added some extra clothes to some of mine, and hats and and scarves...

"Good evening everybody, my name is Siobhan and I will be your instructor for the next five weeks for this 'Basic Computer Skills' course".

Two people got up and left!  Yikes!!

OMG!  Was it something I said, I haven't even started and already I'm loosing pupils.  I followed them into the corridor and they apologised and said they were in the wrong room, there were here to do the 'Domestic Thermal Insulation' course, which was next door!  Phew...  TG for that!  As little as I know about Computers I know even less about Thermal Insulation, unless you count the long johns and vest that I wore under my clothes when it was snowing last December.  For a minute I thought I had been rumbled as a fraud before I even had a chance to do my best teacher impression, and they had left in disgust!

Well, they hadn't and I did get a chance to do my best Air Hostess impression as I then went through the emergency exit and health and safety routine (which I had practiced over and over in my bedroom with Rusty as my very enthusiastic audience!) with the rest of my pupils.  I'm sure I heard somebody snoring.

Then there was the roll call and the form filling and the handing out of the course work and booklets.  It was almost time for 'coffee break' and I hadn't even opened a book yet....

That was last night, and it went pretty well.  I think they understood me, well they didn't look at me with blank expressions all the time, and I even answered some questions, like, where were the rest rooms and what time did the class finish!  And, despite my nervousness, I think they even learned something too!

But, it wasn't all success, I did have one pupil who couldn't quite keep up.  I stayed with him last night while the others went for coffee and we went over what we had done again and again with me doing my best artist impression by drawing little pictures to explain the keyboard until he was more comfortable with it and understood it.  I thought I had been OK with him and was encouraged when I saw him come back tonight.  But my high didn't last too long, he stayed until coffee time and then said it was soul destroying for him as he wasn't able to keep up and he wouldn't be back.....

Not a very good start for me as a teacher, and a bit soul destroying for me too!   I feel like running away, but I have to go back next week, and I have to stay 'till the end of the course.  I'll just have to put it behind me and chalk it up to experience and remember to bring thicker skin with me next week, and maybe draw better pictures!

So, I started off with 14, lost two to Insulation and one to lack of confidence, I hope I can hold on to the remaining 11, as well as my sanity!!