One of the most important (and enjoyable) parts of my job at Høyskolen på Vestlandet is visiting my students during their teaching practice.
I have noticed a huge difference between visiting primary school classes (eg Year Five) and lower secondary (eg Year Ten).
The younger kids bombard me with questions such as:
How old are you?
Why are you here?
What's your name?
Are you their teacher?
(and best of all) Are you going to be a teacher?
The older pupils, on the other hand, generally ignore me completely.
The most surprising example of this was when I got off the bus at the wrong stop and was afraid of being late. I saw the school, but no road or footpath that would take me there. I decided to go between some houses, but that was not possible without crossing a private garden. I was desperate, so I did. At the end of the garden I was stopped momentarily by a rusty barbed wire fence, which I climbed over, and then had to make my way through a few metres of thorny bushes.. I ran to the classroom and entered, breathless, with twigs in my hair and bleeding from both my hands from close contact with the fence and bushes.
How did the Year Ten pupils react?
They didn’t bat an eyelid.
Still on the subject of school visits:
I have very recently been visiting some schools in the Tromsø area, digitally, not physically, unfortunately. I was impressed by how well the students and teachers all seemed to have adjusted to the various constraints imposed by the Covid pandemic. I was also gratified and grateful for the warm reception the students all gave me, when I suddenly appeared instead of their regular teacher, who is on paternity leave.