One of the things the veterans of the group kept stressing was, "It will take A LOT of patience!"
...And that much, I thought I understood. At least, conceptually. "Children can be frustrating", or "they will test you and your boundaries"...these are the things that came to mind. Instead, what I'm finding is that I have to be patient with myself and my own abilities--I want to teach them this way, then that way. And on some level, I know the back and forth is inevitable, trial and error is embedded in the process. And it's been difficult to accept that, and I don't think I've grasped it just yet either. But I'm beginning to notice it, because I feel the tension, in myself and sometimes in the students. When I can feel myself fucking up and their frustration growing and growing while I try and figure something out to get them feeling in control again, and it doesn't take me having patience with the student; rather, it's myself that I'm fighting with.
I think I've only just seen tiny little slivers of the process, but I thought I'd write it down, to remember. When the adults say that it takes patience, they are talking about themselves. Not because the children frustrate them, but because they want to teach you so badly and that involves a lot of internal deconstructing, analyzing, and admitting that they don't have a concrete answer. To the most supposed basic task.
I don't know how to teach sounds to this student, or even that one. But I KNOW them. Don't I? Don't I know my letter sounds? How can I really?
There’s a line in the Talmud that says, “More than a calf wants to suck, the cow wants to give milk.” I think you are illustrating this in your post. Teach, korey, teach them to read. Then somehow teach them to question everything they read. But I guess you have to teach them to read first.
Keep at it. As my career as an educator of 18+ years has shown me, I'm still learning to teach. I am very good at much of what I do, and seriously excellent in a couple of areas. But it can be a slow go, especially if you don't give yourself the time and patience to develop a solid practice. The kids will follow you if you can show patience for yourself. If you approach teaching with humility and confidence that things can be figured out, the kids will see that and will be willing and wanting follow you. Most of all, have fun.
I generally don't have a lot of concrete memories from being that young but I remember super well the teacher who taught me how to read. We read the same book ( Nina Nina Ballerina ) so many times and at the end of it she let me have the book since it was originally her daughter's who was now much older. I could still tell you the whole story of that book and I didn't even realize until like high school that they didn't pull everybody aside to teach them how to read. I wasn't a big reader after that anyways but learning how to read was still a memory I cherished. So I'm sure it tries your patience at times but you're probably giving children a memory they will cherish for a long time which is pretty cool.