The Start of a New Beginning

Isn't it funny that at 42 years of age I would have so many new beginnings. Next week will the start of my practum that will lead (I hope) to a new career. This is the place I intend to post my development into a teacher.
Of the many things I have learned while putting what I have learned into practice is the art of letting go. The most important part of letting go is to make sure that the learning environment has been well established first, then letting go is easy. If you have been too busy to set the right environment, then letting go is hard. This reminds me of an article by Perkins (Perkins, D., & Blythe, T. (1994). Putting understanding up front. Educational Leadership, 51(5), 4-7.) about teaching for understanding. Will have to try and remember that for the next four weeks.
This idea specifically relates to two days of teaching this week. On Wednesday I did not plan too much for the lessons, I was going to explain the exercises in the book, and then have the students do the exercises. This didn't work so well and there was rebellion in the ranks, understandably so. On Friday, another hands on experience was planned and this worked quite well, but maybe not as I had hoped. But the students did learn something about what I was asking them to investigate and they were able to experiment a bit. Opneing their minds will take some time. However, I did not dicate the flow of the lesson too much and the students were able to learn something.
A good day for letting go.